Amber Rudd’s insistence that she did not know about targets for removing immigrants has been undermined by a leaked letter she wrote to the Prime Minister.

In the letter, written more than a year ago, Ms Rudd sets out her plans to increase removals by 10pc, appearing to contradict her earlier denial to MPs.

On Monday Ms Rudd will make a statement in the House of Commons in an attempt to save her job amid intensified calls for her resignation.

In the letter to Theresa May sent in January 2017, Ms Rudd outlined her plan to “deliver the 10% uplift in enforced removals over the next few years”. She laid out in some detail in the four-page letter the structural changes she was putting in place in the Home Office to meet the target.

However in front of the Home Affairs select committee last week she insisted under questioning that “we don't have targets for removals", adding "That's not how we operate."

One Cabinet colleague suggested her career was hanging by a thread in the wake of the Windrush scandal in which it emerged that Caribbean migrants legally entitled to remain in the UK had been threatened with deportation.