The pressure group of Conservative MPs co-founded by Devizes MP Danny Kruger has told the Prime Minister risks alienating voters from the Conservatives if his government doesn’t bring down immigration.

The New Conservative group, which was set up in May by a number of Conservative MPs, including Mr Kruger, has issued a 12-point plan to cut net migration to the UK to less than half the current annual total of 606,000.

It says: “The British public voted for a strong approach to migration. They did not vote for mass migration and the social and economic harms it brings.

"Reliance on cheap international labour drives down wages for British workers and disincentivises businesses from investing skills training or in new technology.

"Mass migration also contributes to the housing crisis: over half a million more houses a year are estimated to be needed to keep up with current migration trends.”

It concluded: “Without swift action to get migration under control, the Conservative party will further erode the trust of hundreds of thousands of voters who lent the party their vote in 2019,”

And one of the main planks would be, they say, to stop care workers from being eligible for visas to live and work in the UK.

The report says withdrawing right of entry under the Health and Care Worker scheme would cut the numbers of immigrants to Britain by 82,000.

The report recommends a maximum of 20,000 refugees would be accepted for resettlement and it also suggests caps on future humanitarian schemes such as the Ukraine, Afghanistan and Hong Kong schemes should a predicted reduction of 168,000 migrants not be realised.

The New Conservatives want to reduce the number of overseas students, cutting access to the job market for those enrolled on research master’s degrees, and preventing graduates staying in the country without a job offer. The group also wants to restrict student places, excluding what it calls “the poorest performing universities.”

Altogether the group says this could cut numbers by 174,000.

The group advocates raising the income threshold to £26,200 for sponsoring a spouse to come to the UK and would increase the language requirement.

The group describes an income of £26,200 as “exceptionally low”.

The last two measures would be to cap the amount of social housing that local authorities can provide to non-UK nationals as five per cent of the total, and to increase the immigration health surcharge to £2,700 per person per year.

It says: “By committing to these policies now, the Conservative government will be on track to honour their pledge to cut migration by the next election.”