Yvette Cooper MP, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary, responding to today’s immigration statistics, said:

“These figures show David Cameron needs to stop the dishonesty over his failed immigration target and replace it with a sensible plan instead which properly separates immigration and asylum.

"All his overblown rhetoric has achieved is a decline in public confidence as the electorate are faced with more broken promises. At the same time he has failed to tackle the exploitation by dodgy employers and agencies which is driving low skilled migration, undercutting wages and jobs and at its worst creating modern slavery. Meanwhile universities and businesses are finding the system too rigid to get the top international talent they need.

"But most troubling of all, the net migration target treats immigration and asylum as the same. That is morally wrong and is preventing Britain playing its part in responding to the terrible refugee crisis that stems from Syria and has spread across Europe. We have a long tradition of providing sanctuary for those fleeing conflict and persecution abroad - yet we are completely failing to live up to that tradition now. Other countries round the world are doing their bit. It is time Britain did too.”