Conservative manifesto plan to reduce immigration is an 'aim' not a promise, says Theresa May

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

The Conservative manifesto plan to reduce immigration to the tens of thousands is an “aim” rather than a promise, Theresa May has said.

The Home Secretary was asked this morning on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme whether the commitment included in Conservative manifesto was a “promise”.

She replied: “We have still set the aim which we set out in our manifesto; we continue to have, as a government, of bringing net migration down to the tens of thousands. It is the ambition that we have set very clearly in our manifesto.”

The party’s manifesto says the party will “keep our ambition of delivering annual net migration in the tens of thousands, not the hundreds of thousands”.

Ms May’s clarification comes as David Cameron today announces details of the Government’s new immigration bill which will be brought forward in the Queen’s Speech.

The bill will create a new offence of “illegal working” that would allow the police to seize the wages of undocumented migrants as the proceeds of crime.

“The truth is it has been too easy to work illegally and employ illegal workers here,” he will say in a speech in London today.

The most recent quarterly net migration statistics show net migration at 298,000 last year, an increased of 54,000 on 2010.