The Prime Minister has repeated promises to cut immigration but stopped short of setting any targets.
Sir Keir Starmer pledged his Government would "reduce immigration - legal and illegal" but was unclear how this would be achieved as he set out a "plan for change" in a speech at Pinewood studios near Slough on Thursday.
Immigration did not feature in six "milestones" he set out so voters could "hold our feet to the fire".
Under repeated questioning from reporters as to why he had not included this commitment in the list, he said cutting immigration "will only be done with a serious plan" and - referring to "illegal" immigration - repeated his argument that the only way to do this would be to go after people smuggling gangs running the "vile trade".
Afterwards, Reform UK criticised the Prime Minister for not including "any measurable targets" on immigration in his milestones.
The British public want "a serious plan to ensure we've got control of our borders, not arbitrary caps, not gimmicks", the Prime Minister said as he claimed immigration did not feature in the six pledges because reducing this was one of the "foundational things that a government must do".
Labour committed to tackling problems within the immigration system in its election manifesto. But in the five months the party has been in Government so far ministers have been reluctant to set specific targets on numbers.
Nearly 34,000 migrants have arrived in the UK so far this year after crossing the Channel.
Home Office figures show 289 people made the journey in six boats on Wednesday, taking the provisional total for the year up to now to 33,973.
This is up 17% on this time last year (29,090) but down 23% on 2022 (44,174), which was a record high year for crossings.
Other figures show the cost of the UK's asylum system has risen to £5 billion, the highest level of Home Office spending on record and up by more than a third in a year.
Meanwhile, some 35,651 asylum seekers were being housed in UK hotels at the end of September, up more than 6,000 since the end of June signalling the first quarterly rise for a year.
On Monday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper vowed to "restore order" to the migration system and continued to blame the Tories for failures as the number of migrants arriving in the UK after crossing the Channel topped 20,000 since Sir Keir became Prime Minister.
Downing Street insisted fresh efforts to tackle Channel crossings are starting to show results, with Labour sources claiming the weather had played a "significant" role in the number of crossings seen this year.
Ms Cooper's pledge followed the Prime Minister last week announcing a major overhaul of the immigration system as he described revised figures estimating net migration was nearly one million last year as "unprecedented" and "off the scale" and accused the Conservatives of running "a one-nation experiment in open borders".
The difference between the number of people arriving and leaving the country hit a record 906,000 in the 12 months to June 2023, some 166,000 higher than previously thought, according to revised estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The figures, covering the previous Conservative government's administration before the general election, have since dropped by 20% and stood at 728,000 in the latest period for the year to June 2024.
The day before, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch admitted her party had failed on migration.
Arguing his Government had taken action to “fix the foundations”, Sir Keir set out six “milestones” that he said would allow the public to “hold our feet to the fire” on the missions he set for himself before the election.
Chief among them was a promise to deliver higher living standards by the next election, saying growth must be “felt by everyone, everywhere”, while insisting his long-term aim was still to make the UK the fastest-growing G7 economy.
But he declined to put a specific numerical target on living standards, saying only that he wanted to see real household disposable income and GDP per capita rise in every region of the country.
Sir Keir denied that Thursday’s speech – branded an “emergency reset” by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch – represented a change of plan, saying it “doubles down on our national missions” which have “remained robust” since they were announced two years ago.
This government has a Plan for Change.
— UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) December 5, 2024
Our long-term missions will improve the lives of working people and strengthen our country.
Progress will be measured by ambitious milestones. pic.twitter.com/XvZjPRO85x
But he also faced accusations of watering down his plan to decarbonise the power grid by 2030, after saying the target was now to have “at least 95%” clean power generation by that year.
Labour insisted the two statements were consistent, with Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband saying the remaining 5% was due to the need to maintain a strategic gas reserve.
Other targets announced on Thursday were building 1.5 million homes, making 150 planning decisions on major infrastructure projects, ensuring that 92% of patients waited no longer than 18 months for NHS treatment, providing a named police officer for every neighbourhood, and having 75% of children start school with a good level of development.
The Prime Minister described the targets as “ambitious”, saying they were “not about making the Government look good” but were instead meant as a challenge to a Whitehall that had grown “comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline”.
In the foreword to a document laying out his plan, the Prime Minister said promised “a profound cultural shift away from a declinist mentality” as well as honesty about the “trade-offs” required to achieve his aims.
He also argued that successful delivery was the way to counter the rise of populist politics in the UK, saying it “feeds off real concerns”.
Responding to the speech, Ms Badenoch said the Prime Minister’s “emergency reset” showed Labour had not been “ready for government”.
She also claimed the Government’s “costly plans for energy decarbonisation” had been “watered-down”, and “fewer than a third of Labour’s 13,000 neighbourhood police are actually new police officers”.
Ms Badenoch added: “This relaunch can’t hide the reality of a Government that doesn’t know what it is doing.”
