Keir Starmer press conference LIVE: Prime Minister brands record net migration figures a ‘different order of failure’ as he vows to drive down numbers arriving in UK

The Prime Minister said the economy under the previous Conservative government had become ‘hopelessly reliant’ on foreign workers.

He said the key to reducing migration numbers was to improve the economy, claiming the vast majority of those who came to the UK ‘did so to plug gaps in our workforce’.

Sir Keir Starmer has said the Government will immediately publish a white paper aimed at reducing immigration.

He insists bringing the numbers down it won’t be quick or easy but ‘we will turn it around’.

The Prime Minister has begun his address to the nation describing the immigration figures as a ‘different order of failure’.

He begins the speech by accusing the Conservatives of ‘running an open borders experiment’ during their time in office.

He said his Labour government is ready to turn the page.

We’re expecting the Prime Minister any moment now.

His press conference was expected to take place at 3pm but has been delayed.

Official figures on net migration to the UK were released earlier today.

Here’s what you need to know:

• The UK’s net immigration record has been smashed again with 906,000 now thought to have been added to the population in a single year
• The number released by the Office for National Statistics is 166,000 above the initial estimate of 740,000
• The cost of the UK’s asylum system has risen to £5 billion, the highest level of spending on record and up by more than a third in a year, according to separate Home Office data
• Some 25,244 migrants have arrived on Channel boats in the year to September, slightly ahead of the figures for 2023
• Some 66 per cent of small boats arrivals who received an initial decision in the year ending September were granted asylum. That was down from 86 per cent in the previous 12 months
• The number of asylum seekers being housed temporarily in UK hotels was 35,651 at the end of September – up from 29,585 at the end of June despite the Labour government pledging to stop using the facilities

Nigel Farage called the migration statistics released this morning “horrendous”.

The Reform UK leader held a press conference reacting to the new figures.

Horrendous if you want to get a GP appointment, horrendous if you want to travel around Britain’s motorways, horrendous if you want your kids or grandkids to ever get a foot onto the housing ladder.

Horrendous in terms of producing very disjointed societies and communities.

And you might have noticed, the quicker the population rises, the poorer the average family in Britain becomes.

The scale of the inflows – with the peak roughly equivalent to adding two cities the same size as Leicester in a year – immediately sparked a fresh political row.

Numbers from outside the EU have exploded since 2021, after the Brexit deal took effect.

The five biggest sources of immigration have been India, Nigeria, Pakistan, China and Zimbabwe.

In the year to June 2023, 268,000 arrivals came from India alone.

Kemi Badenoch used a major speech last night to insist the Tories would not allow Britain to be treated like a ‘hotel’ for migrants.

But Labour claimed it is ‘clearing up the mess’ left by the former government.

The UK’s net immigration record has been smashed again with 906,000 now thought to have been added to the population in a single year.

Huge revisions to official data show the extraordinary mark was hit in the year to June 2023 – and the figures remain at historically unprecedented levels.

Official data covering the 12 months to June this year show long-term immigration was 728,000 higher than those leaving the country. In itself that was almost as much as the previous record.

But the bar has been dramatically shifted upwards by the Office for National Statistics, with net migration for the year to June 2023 now thought to have been 166,000 above the initial estimate of 740,000.

Keir Starmer has called a press conference at Downing Street after new figures revealed net migration to the UK hit a record 906,000 in 2023.

Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures indicated the measure for the difference between the number of people arriving and leaving the country reached the higher than previously thought peak in the 12 months to June last year, after being revised up 166,000 from the initial estimate of 740,000.

The estimates, covering the previous Conservative government’s administration prior to the general election, have since dropped by 20% and stood at 728,000 in the latest period for the year to June 2024.

Meanwhile, the cost of the UK’s asylum system has risen to £5 billion, the highest level of spending on record and up by more than a third in a year, according to separate Home Office data published at the same time.