Kent MPs have said the government must do more to limit immigration into the UK as figures published today show a huge rise in numbers.

Net migration to the UK is estimated to have stood at a record 606,000 in 2022, the Office for National Statistics has said.

Thanet South MP Craig Mackinlay says the government appears to have failed to act to curb numbers – and jobs that could be done by Brits are being taken by people moving here from abroad.

He said he was concerned about the ease with which it was possible to get work visas, saying it was “completely bonkers” that jobs were open to anyone in the international community.

The Conservative said: “This was an unusual year. We have had 170,000 Ukrainian refugees and we have had schemes in place for Afghans and for Syria and for Hong Kong. But underlying that there are still a lot of others which include students with visas and work visas.

“I have very grave concerns about the level of salary and skills by which you can qualify for a visa, which has been for years very low, which means a majority of jobs available in the UK are available to anyone in the world.

“There are tools to get this down but it does seem to have crept up on us and the numbers are too high; and too high for housing. We do not have the facilities to cope with this number of people on an annual basis and we have to work to get this number down to more manageable levels.”

He accepted that there could be a skills gap that meant some jobs could not always be done by UK citizens and “that would have to be looked at”.

He also suggested some university courses might not be preparing students for the world of work and there needed to be “a good long look at ourselves”.

On student visas, he said it was sometimes being used “as a back door route” into the UK.

He said there was a question of how there were jobs that needed filling but by and large were taken up by those outside the UK as it “did not match with the 5.3m people on working-age benefits who could be fit and healthy enough to do a job”.

Meanwhile, Gravesham MP Adam Holloway said it was “completely insane” that Conservative MPs were not speaking out about the need to reduce the numbers.

Asked on GB News why that was the case, he replied: “I would go further; it’s completely insane. Who would think a Conservative government was presiding over effectively uncontrolled immigration?”