91Èȱ¬

Conservative leadership candidate Dame Priti Patel has defended her record on immigration, which hit record levels during her time as home secretary.

Responding to questions following a speech in London, the MP for Witham said it was important to see the figures "in context" due to the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

Speaking to supporters she said she had made changes to the system allowing ministers to control migration.

Dame Priti was appointed home secretary by Boris Johnson in July 2019, launching a new points-based immigration system and signing the agreement with Rwanda to send some asylum seekers to the country.

After a drop during the Covid pandemic, net migration - the number of people coming to the UK, minus the number of people leaving - then rose sharply during her time in the role, which she held until September 2022.

In 2022 net migration reached a record 745,000, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Some Tories have pointed to the party's failure to reduce migration as a key reason for their historic defeat at this year's general election.

Pressed over her record on migration, Dame Priti said: "On my watch from 2019 onwards we delivered the structural reforms to the immigration and asylum system.

"That was the introduction of a points-based immigration system which effectively means that the government of the day has the levers to control who comes into our country and who does not come into our country. And that includes numbers."

She added that it was "too simple" and "lazy" to speak about migration figures without "context".

"Are we now saying that those NHS workers who came here during the pandemic and were not welcome and we should be sending them back?" she said.

"Are we saying that we were insincere to the people that came from Hong Kong, the BNOs [British Nationals Overseas] and the Ukrainians when war in Europe took place? That is certainly not the Conservative Party that I represent."

Dame Priti also said that if she was prime minister, she would implement the Rwanda deportation scheme, which has been scrapped by the new Labour government.

She added: "The sad thing is, we will never know now whether that Rwanda policy will work, because the government has just torn it up."

Dame Priti is one of six candidates for the Conservative leadership and faces competition from Tom Tugendhat, James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick, Mel Stride and Kemi Badenoch.

They are currently aiming to secure the backing of fellow Tory MPs, who will whittle the field down to four candidates in a series of votes by the time of the party's annual conference at the end of September.

The MPs will then narrow the field to a final two contenders, with party members choosing the winner, who will be announced on 2 November.