Rishi Sunak says he is ‘crystal clear’ that he wants to reduce immigration – as it happened

Prime minister says he wants level of net immigration to fall below the 500,000 it was when he took over. This live blog is now closed

It is a topic Rishi Sunak would no doubt prefer to avoid: the record-breaking jump in net immigration - soon to be revealed in official figures - which is already causing increasingly fractious rows within his cabinet.

Even a trip to the G7 summit in Japan was not far enough, with reporters on the flight asking directly whether the prime minister intended to stick to Boris Johnson's 2019 manifesto pledge to bring net immigration down.