Rishi Sunak has refused to put an “arbitrary number” on the target for reducing net migration to the UK as he said he did not “want all of them in the world”.

The Prime Minister also conceded that the deal with France on Channel crossings was not a “silver bullet”.

He appeared to distance himself from his previous pledge over the summer to create an annual cap on the number of refugees accepted in the UK, saying he was spending “most of my time” on his priority of tackling illegal migration.

I'm not going to put an arbitrary number on it. So I want to be honest with people and I think, right now, our number one challenge is getting a grip of the number of illegal migrants coming

Mr Sunak was asked about Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s pledge to reduce net migration to tens of thousands of people.

Speaking to GB News in Bali, where he is attending the G20 summit, the Prime Minister said: “The Government’s policy, and my policy, is that we will want to reduce net migration over time, but I don’t want all of them in the world.

“Well, I’m not going to put an arbitrary number on it. So I want to be honest with people and I think, right now, our number one challenge is getting a grip of the number of illegal migrants coming.”

He said curbing the number of illegal migrants was “the thing that I’ve spent most of my time on, outside of helping the Chancellor prepare for the autumn statement”.

People are “starting to see the fruits of some of that work”, he said, pointing to the Government’s fresh multimillion-pound deal with France.

The agreement, worth around £63 million, was signed on Monday, as the number of people making the perilous journey across the Channel in small boats so far this year topped 40,000.

But the Prime Minister has come under fire from critics, as well as some of his own MPs, amid concerns the latest agreement falls short of what is needed to curb the crisis.

Mr Sunak acknowledged the pact “is going to help us but it’s not a silver bullet”.

In his unsuccessful campaign for the Tory leadership in the summer, he promised to give Parliament control over who came to the UK by creating a limit on refugees accepted, arguing there was a finite amount of legal asylum seekers the country could accommodate.

The Prime Minister earlier told reporters travelling with him to Indonesia: “Having a conversation like that can only happen after we’ve taken all the necessary steps to have proper control of our borders, so that there aren’t large numbers of people coming here illegally.”