Victoria Derbyshire has been lauded for holding Tory MP Richard Holden’s feet to the fire during a brutal interview.
The pair clashed over met migration, which remains “unusually high” as the UK heads towards an election despite official estimates suggesting a 10 per cent drop in numbers last year.
The measure for the difference between the number of people arriving and leaving the country hit a new record of 764,000 in 2022 – 19,000 higher than previously thought – according to revised figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The data also indicates net migration levels are estimated to have fallen in 2023 to 685,000.
But this is still more than three times higher than the figure at the time of the last election when the Conservatives promised to cut overall numbers in their 2019 manifesto.
Derbyshire put the figures to Holden on Newsnight, leaving him floundering for answers: