Five months ago, net migration reached a record high of more than 900,000 under the previous Conservative Government. This was due to specific government choices made from 2020 onwards, including introducing a free market experiment on immigration that encouraged employers to recruit from abroad without addressing skills and labour shortages in the UK. The current government is making different choices, aiming to restore order and control over the immigration system while bringing net migration down substantially and boosting skills and training at home. The White Paper published today outlines five core principles: controlling net migration, linking immigration to skills and training, ensuring fairness and effectiveness, enforcing rules, and supporting integration and community cohesion. It addresses issues such as overseas recruitment increasing while domestic training was cut, and employers being given a wage discount for recruiting from abroad, which discouraged domestic recruitment and training. The plan includes overhauling labour market policy by lifting the threshold for skilled worker visas back to graduate level, limiting access to lower-skilled jobs on a temporary shortage list, establishing a new labour market evidence group, ending overseas recruitment of care workers, increasing the immigration skills charge paid by employers who recruit from abroad by 32%, enhancing visa routes for high-skilled individuals, reducing the unrestricted period for international students on graduate visas, and introducing higher language requirements across various visa routes.