Legal migration "dwarfs" illegal migration, says Robert Jenrick (Image: Getty)

       Robert Jenrick has called for migrant numbers entering Britain to be capped at 100,000.

       The former Home Office minister, who resigned in protest at the Rwanda bill, said introducing a parliamentary “lock” on numbers would “restore voters' trust”.

       Net migration - the number of immigrants coming to the UK minus those who emigrate - hit a record high of 745,000 in 2022.

       In a report, Taking Back Control, the ex-immigration minister argues that the government should introduce a “migration budget” which would cap both overall migration levels and how many people can come to Britain via visa routes.

       These limits would be set and voted on by parliament, with the report recommending that a cabinet minister should be required to provide an annual update on the pressure that migration is placing on housing, infrastructure and public services, such as the NHS.

       It also argues that the UK must become the “grammar school of the western world” by toughening up the points-based system, introduced after Brexit, to ensure that the vast majority of visas are offered to high-skilled, well-paid migrants.

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       Mr Jenrick says the Government’s recently-passed Rwanda Bill will soon “join the graveyard of policies” that failed to tackle illegal migration, but called legal migration “a bigger scandal”.

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       Writing in the Sunday Telegraph he said: “As offensive and dangerous as illegal migration is, the bigger scandal is the story of legal migration because the numbers involved are so much greater.

       “Last year, there were about 30,000 illegal small boat arrivals, but this was dwarfed by the 1.2 million people who arrived here perfectly legally.”

       According to Mr Jenrick, net migration needs to be wound back to “the tens of thousands”.

       “We need to create a far more restrictive system that establishes the UK as the grammar school of the Western world, focusing on attracting the high skill, high wage migrants who will be net contributors to the economy,” he said.

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       “The only way politicians can look voters in the eye and guarantee they can meet their promises to reduce net migration is to introduce a cap which would serve as a democratic lock on numbers.”

       Home Office minister Chris Philp declined to set a limit on net immigration when asked for his response to Mr Jenrick’s demand.

       Mr Philp told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: “I’m not in a position to sit here and advocate for a hard cap today. But what I can say is that we’re taking measures that have been enacted and are now being implemented to reduce legal migration by about 300,000 a year. That’s by significantly increasing salary thresholds. It’s by reducing the numbers of dependents who can come in with migrants.

       “I think the British public do want us to control, to significantly reduce migration, both legal migration as well as stop illegal migration.”

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