British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was left red-faced during Monday morning’s (12 May) press conference at Downing Street as he discussed the country’s immigration system and his tough new measures that will see a “significant” reduction.

While discussing what Labour’s new White Paper will mean, the leader of the party was asked by Robert Peston from ITV: “You know that the countries that want to grow are in a global race for top talent. Your number one priority is growth, haven’t you shot yourself in the foot by insisting that those who want to be citizens now have to live here twice as long as those who want to be American citizens?”

He then added: “And if I may, we’ve just heard that there will be a 90-day massive reduction in the tariffs that China and America are imposing on each other. Are you relieved that these temporarily they’ve laid down their economic arms?”

Looking a little flustered, he replied: “On the growth question I do think this is worth taking some time on because the theory that higher migration numbers necessarily leads to higher growth has been tested in the last four years. So we’ve had the highest net rate migration when the last government lost control to nearly one million and stagnant growth, so that link doesn’t hold on that evidence.

“The second thing is that this white paper is not just the white paper on immigration it’s also a white paper that deals with skills and training and one of the reasons that we’ve had stagnant growth, in my view, for years is because we’ve under invested chronically in skills and growth. So by putting skills and growth into the same plan as migration, which is something business have been asking for for years, you actually answer the growth question as well.”

He continued: “I should say as a footnote to that as you heard in the speech and you’ll see in the white paper in relation to high talent where we want the very best into the country we will have roots to get that talent into this country I think was real potential for us to do so in the current environment we intend to do so.”

Answering the second part of the question, he added: “On the professional China tariffs, I just saw something flash out in the room back there so I’m not across the complete detail but I’m very pleased, obviously, that we struck out trade deal with the US last week which will be measured in very many thousands of jobs on billions of pounds in to our economy.”

In his breaking news speech, the Prime Minister promised that “every area” of the system will be “tightened up”. The Government is set to publish its Immigration White Paper today. Sir Keir said: “Every area of the immigration system, including work, family and study, will be tightened up so we have more control. Enforcement will be tougher than ever and migration numbers will fall.”

Sir Keir Starmer said: “Migration is part of Britain’s national story. We talked last week about the great rebuilding of this country after the war. Migrants were part of that, and they make a massive contribution today, and you will never hear me denigrate that.

“But when people come to our country, they should also commit to integration, to learning our language, and our system should actively distinguish between those who do and those who don’t. I think that’s fair.”

He added, “Now, make no mistake, this plan means migration will fall. That’s a promise.”