Reaction: UK migration reaches record high

Net migration to the UK reached a record high of 330,000 in the year to March, official figures show. Here is some of the reaction.

James Brokenshire, immigration minister

"These are very stark figures that show how we've been knocked off course by EU migration and how equally the impact that students who don't leave at the end of their studies has, and the reliance that business continues to place on migrant labour.

"There are significant issues that we have to challenge as a majority government to bring net migration down to those sustainable levels that existed before the last Labour government."

Yvette Cooper, shadow home secretary

"These figures show David Cameron needs to stop the dishonesty over his failed immigration target and replace it with a sensible plan instead which properly separates immigration and asylum.

"All his overblown rhetoric has achieved is a decline in public confidence as the electorate are faced with more broken promises.

"At the same time he has failed to tackle the exploitation by dodgy employers and agencies which is driving low-skilled migration, undercutting wages and jobs and at its worst creating modern slavery.

"Meanwhile universities and businesses are finding the system too rigid to get the top international talent they need."

Keith Vaz, home affairs committee chairman

"These record-breaking figures are shocking. Only one month ago [Home Secretary] Theresa May told the home affairs committee that net migration of under 100,000 was her target.

"This is clearly not going to happen. Broken promises on migration do not build confidence with the public. We need a radically different approach."

Nigel Farage, UK Independence Party leader

"We've admitted countries like Bulgaria and Romania into a political union with us. I said two years ago this would lead to a very large number of people coming into the country.

"I was laughed at but I'm afraid it's proved to be true. The minimum wage in Britain is nine times higher than the minimum wage in Romania, so these are the main drivers."

Frank Field MP, co-chairman of the cross-party group on balanced migration

"These highest-ever net migration figures highlight how fundamental it is that the prime minister must secure physical control of our borders as a key red and blue line in his renegotiation exercise with Europe.

"The failure of all the political parties in not making this a key demand will mean that they will never ever be able to tell the British electorate that they can bring immigration under control and deliver."

Madeleine Sumption, director of Oxford University's Migration Observatory

"What this means for the UK is subjective. There is no objective way to decide what the "right" number of migrants is, and reasonable people will disagree.

"What is clear is that reducing net migration to below 100,000 remains a distant prospect, at least under current economic conditions and policies."

Lord Deddington, Migration Watch UK chairman

"Net migration at one third of a million a year is clearly unsustainable.

"Nearly half of the inflow is now from the EU, including 50,000 from Romania and Bulgaria as we have long predicted."

Don Flynn, Migrants' Rights Network director

"We now know that policy changes introduced over the last five years had no substantial effect on the numbers, and the forthcoming policy proposals which will be included in the [immigration] bill the government intends to put forward in a few weeks are no different.

"There is broad consensus that the net migration target is extremely unhelpful and shouldn't guide future policy."

Sunder Katwala, director of think tank British Future

"Voters realise that controlling immigration isn't easy - but they do at least expect the prime minister to have a plan to meet the target he's set.

"Unlike the long-term plan for economic recovery on which he was re-elected, his big problem on immigration is that the prime minister has never had a credible plan to meet this target.

"These figures have got to be a wake-up call that a new approach is needed. With the Lib Dems out of government, the PM has run out of excuses."

Marley Morris, IPPR think tank researcher

"Rather than focusing its energy on an unrealistic goal and so continuing to aggravate public concerns, the government should address the impacts of high levels of immigration in communities feeling pressures."

Stephen Hale, Refugee Action chief executive

"Our asylum system must be shaped by the needs of those seeking safety in this country from war and persecution, not an arbitrary net migration target.

"The UK can and should treat them as human beings not statistics. We must support everyone in our asylum system to receive a fair hearing, and enable those recognised as refugees to contribute to Britain."

Robert Oxley, Business for Britain campaign director

"We have to look at today's immigration policy and realise it's simply not working. It's not working for the public and it's not working for businesses.

"The public don't have faith in the current immigration system but because of the way it's structured and the rules that we have to operate under in the European Union, business isn't able to bring in the talent that it wants.

"It's simply not rational that a business can't bring in a skilled engineer, a doctor or a scientist from outside of the European Union because we're hitting our caps of our skilled quotas while anyone can move from within the EU into the UK."