Heather Stewart

They've absolutely plunged.

So some controls were put in place in 2024 by the Conservatives.

More tightening took place under Labour when Yvette Cooper was Home Secretary.

And that involved, for example, shutting down the route by which social care workers could come into the country from overseas.

That's just not a thing now.

and tightening quite a few other aspects of the regime.

So lifting salary thresholds, making it harder to bring in family members, lots and lots of changes that mean that, you know, if you look at net migration figures, it's like a child's version of drawing of a mountain.

You know, it goes up very, very sharply and it comes down very, very sharply.

And looking ahead, the way that visa applications are falling suggests that it's going to continue falling very, very sharply.

And some experts think we might even have negative net migration in coming years.

Wow.

So it's kind of extraordinary that we're still having... Despite the tenor of debate right now.

Yeah, and we're still having this very hot debate about it, right?

And yet numbers coming into the country are falling.

But we certainly have, in inverted commas, taken back control of migration in recent years, and it's fallen very sharply.

I mean, it's not been good, has it?

There have been moments, I suppose, where you could say we've slightly been able to plough our own furrow a little bit.

So Keir Starmer has at some points peeled away from the EU in the way that he's handled Donald Trump, although, you know, I'm not quite sure that's... For better or worse?

I'm not sure that's gained us very much.

But it's quite hard to see...