A Tory leadership contender on Wednesday defended the tens of thousands of visas issued to foreign health and care workers each year under the Conservative government and suggested his rivals were not being honest about the challenges of migration.
Tom Tugendhat stressed the need to balance filling recruitment gaps with UK workers and bringing in employees from abroad.
He said his rivals - Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly and Robert Jenrick - “probably” won’t tell the public that immigration "isn't simple".
Following 14 years of Conservative Prime Ministers, net migration is more than two and a half times the 2010 figure. It is double that of 2015, the year in which the Tories formed a majority government.
“We need an effective deterrent, but we must solve as well as stop, and that's why I'll set a legal cap on net migration at 100,000 - not a target, not an ambition, a cap,” the shadow security minister told the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham.
"But a cap alone won't work. This is about visas, not about foreign courts.
"Let me tell you something that my opponents probably won't - this isn't simple.
"We issued the visas because businesses need the staff for our care homes and our hospitals, to look after our families.
"So how do we square this circle? Well, we need to fix migration by fixing the gaps in education and skills, in transport and in housing, so that we can recruit at home and not abroad.
"Now I will end the cap on apprenticeships and use the immigration skills charge to invest in further education and train our own people."
Mr Cleverly told delegates that he cut immigration during his tenure as Home Secretary when he introduced strict new visa rules, which included increasing the salary thresholds needed to come to Britain and banning some foreign workers bringing dependents to the UK with them.
He ruled out any deals with Reform UK if he becomes leader of the Conservative party, saying it is a "pale imitation" of the Tories.
He added: "Never forget Reform didn't deliver Brexit, we did.
“Reform didn't cut immigration, I did.
“And mark my words, we will beat Reform by being the best version of ourselves, not a pale version of anyone else. So no mergers, no deals."
Former Immigration Minister Mr Jenrick said authorities must “detain and deport everyone who comes into our country illegally”.
He added that if he were to become Prime Minister he would seek to take UK out of the European Court of Human Rights.
Ms Badenoch suggested the Treasury was to blame for the rise in immigration during the Conservatives' time in power.
She told the party conference: "In Government, we did not always keep our promises.
“We promised to lower taxes, they went up. We promised to lower immigration, it went up. Why?
“Because the Treasury said high immigration was good for the economy, but we knew it was not good for our country."
