Former Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns has joined Reform UK, says Nigel Farage – UK politics live

Transport across towns and cities could become integrated using dedicated apps, with investment focused on poorer areas and healthier methods, as part of what ministers are calling a “people-first” revolution in local travel. Louise Haigh, the transport secretary, described the plans in a speech in Leeds as “a revolution to wrestle back power over transport”. Peter Walker has the story here.

The Migration Observatory, the leading migration thinktank, based at Oxford University, has published a good briefing on today’s migration figures. Here are the key points.

• The visa changes announced by the Conservative government may not bring migration below pre-Brexit levels, it says. Commenting on the figures, Ben Brindle, a researcher at the Migration Observatory, said:

We are yet to see the full impact of the visa restrictions in the data, although this initial data from the summer suggest that migration levels will not necessarily fall below pre-Brexit levels once the policy changes have bedded in. Of all the policy restrictions introduced over the past year, the restrictions on sponsorship in the care sector are likely to have the largest impact on net migration levels in the medium term, because of the significant number of people involved and the fact that most were expected to remain in the UK permanently.

And this is what the briefing says about the impact of the visa changes in general.

Health and care visa grants to main applicants were down 85% from a Q3 2023 peak of just over 45,000, reaching around 6,600 in Q3 2024. This follows a Home Office crackdown on sponsorship in the care sector due to concerns about exploitation of migrant workers starting in late 2023. The ban on family members of care workers may also have played a role, although most of the decrease preceded that policy change.

Following significant increases in salary thresholds for private-sector jobs, skilled worker visa grants outside of health and care declined by 32% between Q3 2023 and Q3 2024, from 17,800 to 12,100. The largest decrease was seen in visa grants to middle-skilled roles in the food and hospitality sector, such as butchers and chefs, which fell 64% in the same period. However, there were also decreases in professional jobs, such as engineers (down 37%) and IT (down 30%).

Student visas fell following the ban on most students’ family members in the first three quarters of 2024, compared to the same period a year earlier. This was primarily driven by fewer family members themselves (down 84% in Q1-3 inclusive). The number of student main applicants fell by 16% or 64,000 over the same periods. The declines are likely to be spread unevenly across the higher education sector. The 31% decline in combined student and dependant numbers was driven primarily by applicants from Nigeria and India, down 74% and 42% respectively.

Despite efforts introduced by the Labour government to increase the speed of asylum processing, the asylum backlog rose slightly, from 95,300 in June to 97,200 at the end of September 2024. However, any reduction in the asylum backlog must also be viewed alongside trends in the appeals backlog, which has risen substantially, reaching 58,000 in April-June 2024.

In its figures, the Home Office say the asylum backlog was lower in September than it was the year before. (See 10.11am.)

The grant rate for asylum seekers has fallen over the past two years. In the year ending September 2024, 52% of asylum seekers were granted asylum or another legal status, down from 75% in the year ending September 2023. This decline follows an increase in the standard of proof for asylum seekers following the Nationality and Borders Act (NABA) of 2022. The impact has taken some time to materialize because of the asylum backlog.

Back to the migration figures, and here is the response from Seema Malhotra, the Home Office minister.

We absolutely believe that net migration has to dome down, but in order to do that we need to go further.

That’s why we believe that we need to tackle the causes of net migration, including linking skills and visa policies, addressing those gaps in skills and reducing the reliance on overseas recruitment.

But it is also why today I set out new measures, tough measures, to tackle employers who abuse our visa system and flout the rules.

Malhotra was referring to a series of relatively technical changes that will toughen the sanctions that apply to firms that break visa rules relating to foreign workers.

At the press conference they are now taking questions.

Q: How long have you been thinking of joining Reform UK. You had a picture of Nigel Farage on your election leaflet at the election?

Andrea Jenkyns says she has been thinking about it for a while.

She is loyal to parties – if not to PMs, she says.

She says the Conservative party is “tired”.

But she says she has some good friends in the Tory party, like Priti Patel, Boris Johnson and Robert Jenrick.

Nigel Farage says half the Tory party should join the Lib Dems, and half should join Reform UK.

He claims Reform UK can replace the Conservatives.

Q: How many council seats do you need to win?

Farage says he is following the Paddy Ashdown model. Ashdown knew that, unless you won a significant number of council seats, you would not win seats in parliament.

He says the party has a good chance at the Senedd elections. And he claims it is recruiting high-profile people to be candidates there.

And he says Reform UK is even doing well in Scotland. Ukip barely “troubled the scorers” in Scotland, he says. But he says at recent council byelections in Glasgow, the second weakest areas for Reform UK in Scotland, it was getting figures like 13%, 12.5%, and 18%.

He says, to be credible, the number of seats Reform UK must gain at the council elections has to be “in the hundreds”. But the party can do it, he suggests.

Farage says Reform UK is now focused on the local elections next year.

And he claims that the party’s vetting process for candidates is more rigorous than other parties’.

There is one other number he wants to talk about, he says. He says his TikTok account now has more than 1m followers. He says two-thirds of them are under 35, and half are under 25. He says he is very excited about how much support there is for Reform UK in generation Z.

And he announces that Andrea Jenkyns, the former Tory MP, has joined the party.

He claims she was the 100,000th person to join – making her eligible for the prize the party offered for the 100,000th joiner – a pint with Lee Anderson.

And he says Jenkyns will be Reform UK’s candidate in the election for a mayor for Lincolnshire.

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader is speaking now at the press conference.

He claims today’s migration figures are “horrendous” for people who wants a GP appointment, or who want to use the motorways, or who want their children or grandchildren to be able to get a house, or who care about our “disjointed” society.

He says he does not accept that there has been a reduction. He says the ONS has revised up its figures for past years.

Immigration is making people poorer, he claims.

And he dismisses Kemi Badenoch’s admission yesterday that her party made mistakes. He says Tory immigration policies made people poorer.

UPDATE: Farage said:

Horrendous if you want to get a GP appointment, horrendous if you want to travel around Britain’s motorways, horrendous if you want your kids or grandkids to ever get a foot onto the housing ladder.

Horrendous in terms of producing very disjointed societies and communities.”

And you might have noticed, the quicker the population rises, the poorer the average family in Britain becomes.