Home secretary says government is against ‘cliff edges’ and will consult businesses this summer on new immigration system

There will be no dramatic fall in immigration as soon as Britain leaves the EU, the home secretary has suggested, as she announced the government would consult businesses over plans for an immigration system over the summer.

In comments that appeared to back the Brexit secretary, David Davis, when he said the door would not “suddenly shut”, Amber Rudd said the government was “against cliff edges” when it came to reducing immigration.

The Sunday Times reported that ministers were considering a five-year working visa whose holders would be banned from claiming benefits.

Rudd said that was one of a number of options which would be considered, alongside a work permit system where the government would control how many EU citizens could enter the UK every year to take up a job offer with a UK company.

The home secretary has previously been thought to prefer a permit system. Theresa May has in effect ruled out a points-based system, which was the stated preferred option of the Vote Leave campaign, including Boris Johnson and Michael Gove.

Rudd told ITV1’s Peston on Sunday the government was considering plans to limit benefits to new migrants but stressed no final decision had been taken. “One thing I can confirm is we will be ending freedom of movement as we know it,” she said. “Otherwise we’re looking at all sorts of different alternatives.”

Davis said last week that it would take “years and years” for UK businesses and the NHS to replace EU staff in areas such as hospitality and social care. “Don’t expect just because we’re changing who makes the decision on the policy, the door will suddenly shut: it won’t,” he said during a visit to Estonia.

Rudd said what Davis had been “highlighting is the fact that as a government we’re going to work with businesses, with employers, to make sure that the immigration system we put in place does enable them to continue to thrive and continue to grow”.

The Conservative party chairman, Sir Patrick McLoughlin, insisted the government was still committed to reducing numbers, saying Davis’s comments had been taken out of context. “We have the figures towards the end of last week which have shown a reduction [in] net immigration to the country … so I think we need to see how that was done,” he said.

“David is very committed to the prime minister’s agenda, and that is actually ensuring that we get control over our own borders, which was one of the biggest issues in the referendum.”

The independent Migration Advisory Committee could be given an advisory role on how many visas should be issued, according to the Sunday Times report. If a work visa system was implemented, ministers are understood to be keen to depoliticise the issue of how many visas would be issued for different key sectors, such as technology, social care, agriculture and leisure industries.

During the ITV interview, Rudd also hit back at reports criticising the government for its decision to end the scheme to bring unaccompanied refugee children from camps in Europe to the UK, saying it was “fake news” that the UK was shutting the door.

Campaigners voiced anger after the government said it would take no more than 350 children as part of its commitment to the Dubs amendment, put down by the Labour peer Alf Dubs. It was widely understood at the time the amendment was accepted that the government would take about 3,000 unaccompanied minors from the camps in Europe, including Calais.

Rudd denied Lord Dubs and others had been misled. “Every word was haggled over and decided over last year, that there would be a consultation with councils and we would come back with a number, that it would be one-off system,” she said, saying councils would be taking 3,000 children directly from refugee camps across the Middle East.

“Where are the most vulnerable children? Are they in the region or are they in France, and Italy and Greece? They are in the region. That’s why we’re focused on the region.”

Rudd repeated her claim that the Dubs scheme was acting as a “pull factor” for children to travel into Europe. “What happened in Calais is the number of children doubled over three weeks. How did that double? Because traffickers brought them there and the age of children began to fall because we said we would take the youngest children first. If you set up a system of taking children from Europe, the traffickers will bring you the children. It’s not the right thing to do.”

At a hearing of the home affairs select committee on Monday, several charities said the reverse had been the case with the closure of the Dubs scheme giving traffickers an incentive to offer children illegal routes into the UK rather than waiting for safe and legal routes.

The committee’s chair, Yvette Cooper, also said representatives from local government and the Local Government Association had confirmed that if all local authorities met the government’s threshold for unaccompanied children within the national transfer scheme of 0.07% of the total child population, there would be more than 3,000 additional places in England alone.