Maria Caulfield latest MP to repeat misleading claim about Labour’s immigration plans

16 November 2023

You may have seen that yesterday we fact checked a claim made by Jonathan Gullis MP on BBC Politics Live, and shortly afterwards during Prime Minister's Questions by the Prime Minister, about Labour’s plan for migration. It’s since been brought to our attention that health minister Maria Caulfield also said on Politics Live that Labour wants to “do a deal with the EU, in terms of a quota deal taking an extra 120,000 people”.

As we said before, Labour says it has no plans to join a migrant quota deal. Even if it did, this figure’s unreliable. 

Ms Caulfield’s claim appears to be based on a similar Conservative party estimate which has been repeated by several ministers and MPs in recent weeks. We first wrote about a similar claim in September. 

Last month we wrote to Mr Sunak and then-Conservative party chair Greg Hands about the use of the “100,000 migrants” figure, and asked them to take steps to prevent the claim being repeated by party members. We have not received a response.

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