THE Shadow Home Secretary has welcomed the government’s plan to reduce immigration and said that numbers have been “far too high” for years.

Chris Philp told GB News: “I do welcome attempts to get migration down. The figures have been far, far too high for a number of years. But, of course, we Conservatives in government towards the end of our time announced some measures that have already got legal migration down a lot.

“For example, increasing all the salary thresholds and saying that students and people working in the social care sector cannot bring family members over with them. There was actually a further measure, which we announced, to raise the salary threshold to bring over a family member even further up to £38,000.

“But Labour have suspended that move that was actually due to come into force on the first of April, so about three or four weeks ago, but Labour have suspended it. I think Labour has made a terrible mistake by doing that.

“If immigrants are going to bring family members over, that should only happen in limited circumstances where they can afford to look after those family members. And I think you do need to earn £38,000 to be certain that can happen. Labour made a massive mistake by suspending that move.

“I think that if they’re serious about reducing immigration, they should adopt that Conservative measure. We’ve also tabled amendments to various bills in Parliament recently, for example, to have a binding annual vote in parliament on what the immigration number should be, and that, in my view, should be a lot, lot lower than anything we’ve seen recently, and a lot, lot lower than recent forecasts.

“But Labour in Parliament voted against that Conservative proposal just a few weeks ago. I’m afraid so far what we’ve heard from Labour, we may be hearing some rhetoric, but we have not seen action. They failed to do those things I just mentioned.”

He added: “So far 2025 has been the worst year in history for illegal immigrants crossing the English Channel. Secondly, we know you need a deterrent. You need to deter people from crossing.

“We had a deterrent plan, the Rwanda scheme, which was due to start at the end of July, whereby everybody crossing the Channel on a dinghy, illegal Immigrants crossing the Channel on a dinghy, would have been sent straight to Rwanda.

“And we know from when Australia did that about 10 years ago, that very, very quickly, within a matter of a few weeks or a couple of months, they just stopped crossing. Because if you’re an illegal immigrant in France, why would you cross the English Channel on a dinghy if you’re going to wind up in Rwanda?

“It was Labour who cancelled that scheme before it even started, and because we now have no deterrent, that is why the numbers are worse than ever were before.

“If we get back into office, the first thing we’ll do is establish a removals deterrent so that every illegal immigrant crossing the Channel gets sent somewhere else very quickly, whether it’s Rwanda or somewhere else, to deter them from making those crossings.

“Labour came in saying they were going to smash the gangs. Well, that claim lies in tatters. That’s total nonsense. The gangs have not been smashed.”