Tories split over tough plans to charge migrants £2,000 for NHS treatment

Ministers have clashed over demands for tougher immigration rules over fears changes would hit the economy. Suella Braverman’s Home Office wants workers to face a £2,000 annual fee for using the NHS as well as a significant increase in the amount migrants must earn to qualify for a visa. But Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is resisting attempts to tighten the ‘generous’ system in case it derails his attempts to put the economy back on track. A source said: “The points-based system is far too generous. Other countries think we are too generous. “We need to make changes to make it tougher, such as on the health surcharge and raising the salary threshold, but the Treasury is the block.” Suella Braverman and Jeremy Hunt (Image: Getty) The Home Secretary yesterday told the Commons ‘immigration policy is under constant review’. Net migration – the difference between the number of people arriving and those leaving – hit a record 606,000 last year. Tory MPs today (Monday) launched a report calling for more action to drastically reduce numbers. The New Conservatives said British employers had become ‘addicted’ to cheap foreign labour and argued it was time to ‘turn off the taps’ of low-skilled workers arriving from abroad. They set out a 12 point plan to cut numbers, including increasing the salary threshold for migrant workers and increasing the health surcharge. The Daily Express understands Home Office ministers have already floated both proposals but are frustrated at the resistance from the Treasury. MPs to crackdown on migration crisis (Image: Getty) Visa and immigration applicants are currently charged £624 a year for using the health service. Raising that to £2,000 would be a ‘fairer’ reflection of the costs, a source said. The minimum a skilled worker must earn to secure a visa in the UK is £26,200. But ministers believe that allows almost everyone who applies to qualify because it is set too low. The New Conservatives have called for it to be raised to £38,000. But the Treasury is said to fear that such measures will hit economic forecasts drawn up by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. Asked at the launch event for the migration report about tensions between the Home Office and the Treasury, Conservative MP James Daly said: ‘The Chancellor is a very reasonable man. ‘His stewardship of the economy is clearly taking us in the right direction. He is also a realistic man and he wants to respond to the needs of constituents around the country. There is always a balance to be had between what the Treasury desires and what other departments desire. But this is to such an extent now that I’m sure the Chancellor takes a very positive view of what we are saying.’ Ms Braverman was asked in the Commons about the possibility of raising the skilled work visa salary threshold to £38,000 a year. She said ‘net migration is too high’ and that overall numbers needed to be reduced. We expect net migration to return to sustainable levels over time and immigration policy is under constant review,’ Ms Braverman added. Ipswich MP Tom Hunt said the debate was ‘not just about GDP’ but also includes ‘rapid social cultural change’, which needs to be ‘taken in the round’. He dismissed suggestions that universities will go bust as a result of the group’s recommendations that the rules around student visas are tightened up. ‘It’s not the job of government to prop up private institutions,’ he said. Sunak launches new Illegal Migration Bill (Image: Getty) Mr Hunt said levels of migration were ‘too high’ and ‘unsustainable’. He called for the Government to go ‘further’ but denied suggestions that the group was looking to ‘undermine’ Mr Sunak. The group pointed back to the Tory 2019 manifesto pledge to reduce net migration. Mr Hunt said the Prime Minister had been ‘incredibly brave’ with his tough new Illegal Migration Bill that will allow migrants arriving illegally to be swiftly deported. He added: ‘I think it is wrong to brand people who have concerns about net migration being at the level it is right now as somehow hostile to immigration, when it is absolutely not the case. ‘It is disparaging to label people as xenophobes for having concerns about having net migration at half-a-million a year.’ Miriam Cates, the MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, said that ‘huge volume’ of migration to towns and cities in the last decade ‘changes the culture very significantly’. ‘It’s very difficult for local cultures, local communities, local societies to keep up with that change. It’s the pace of change that people find difficult as well as the change itself.’ Ms Cates said only when the supply of cheap labour was scaled back would Britons be able to gain better skills. She said that without reforms ‘we’re not going to stop the addiction to cheap labour’. ‘We’ve got stagnant wages, stagnant productivity, we’ve got really difficult labour market conditions because of years and years of not investing in our own people,’ she said. ‘We are never going to realise the value of our own workers and upskill our own workers if we don’t turn off the taps to mass legal migration.’ A Treasury source said it was ‘not aware’ of any issue relating to migration reforms that the Treasury or Chancellor is ‘blocking.’