WORKINGTON MP Mark Jenkinson has joined a group of Tory MPs in lobbying the Prime Minister to take a stronger stance on immigration.

The New Conservatives, predominately made up of ‘red wall’ MPs, have issued a 12-point plan to cut net migration by about 400,000 before the next election.

The report recommends closing visa schemes for care workers, increasing salary thresholds, and capping refugee numbers.

Written by Tory MP Tom Hunt and backed by a group of like-minded Conservatives, including the party's deputy chairman, Lee Anderson, Miriam Cates and James Daly, the report has been backed by Workington MP Mark Jenkinson, who joined the house as part of the ‘2019 intake’.

Talking about why he has backed this report, Mr Jenkinson said: “I think for decades we have had an addiction to importing low-paid labour and that has kept people’s wages down in that time. The start of that was our points-based system.

“I think most people would be shocked to find that more than half health and social care visas (which they gave an exemption on meeting a points-based criteria after Covid) did not go to health and social care workers, they went to dependents, families, husbands, partners.

“There are tweaks that we can make to the system, that we need to do.

“What we need to do is work on rather than just growing GDP, we need to ensure that we grow GDP per capita, that we become more productive as a country and that will raise everyone’s living standards.”

One of the report's main recommendations is closing temporary schemes that grant eligibility for worker visas to care workers, saying that this policy will reduce visas granted by 117,000, leading to a reduction in long-term inward migration to the UK of 82,000.

Part of this proposed policy involves only allowing in 'skilled workers' who earn £38,000 a year or more.

The report has faced some questions in this area, with some critics saying that they believe the policy would create further issues around vacancies in social care.

In October 2022, charity Skills for Care published a report saying vacancies in the sector were at the ‘highest rate since records began’.

When asked about this, Mr Jenkinson said: “This is a discussion that we need to have medium to long term about training British workers... we have got 5million people economically inactive.

“We need to make sure that British workers are sufficiently trained in the sectors and skills they need and that we ween ourselves off the teat of imported low-skilled labour.”