headlines and it's mark white. >> good evening. the main headunes >> good evening. the main headlines from the gb news centre. conservative leader kemi badenoch has criticised the prime minister's style of leadership over claims he broke covid lockdown rules. speaking to gb news, the tory leader questioned the explanation sir keir starmer gave for meeting with a voice coach during lockdown. miss badenoch branded sir keir a lawyer, not a leader. >> interesting is just how hypocritical keir starmer has been.i hypocritical keir starmer has been. i don't know anyone who needs emergency voice coaching on christmas eve. i think that keir starmer is a lawyer, not a leader, and i think he knows exactly what he can and cannot say to get himself out of trouble. >> meanwhile, gb news can confirm that the prime minister has met in private with victims of the southport attack today. it's the third time sir keir has

visited the merseyside town since last july's stabbings. this latest visit was intended as an opportunity to meet the bereaved families and some of the victims in the wake of the sentencing of the southport murderer, axel rudakubana. earlier, the prime minister visited lancashire and said nuclear power would be prioritised in the spending review at a nuclear laboratory alongside the energy secretary, sir keir said more nuclear power plants will be approved as red tape is slashed. ministers say the plans aimed to make it easier to build small modular reactors to help deliver clean, secure and more affordable energy. two suspected people smugglers wanted by french authorities have been arrested in the uk by the national crime agency. albanian lulzim , farage agency. albanian lulzim, farage and iraqi national rabin rafe

were tracked down and detained in london. both are wanted in france, where prosecutors accused them of being involved in a number of small boat crossings in 2022. they are also suspected of money laundering and other organised crime offences. the foreign office has announced that a russian diplomat has had their accreditation revoked by the uk. the for tat move comes after a british diplomat was expelled from moscow last year. the russian ambassador was summoned to the foreign office to be informed of the move. foreign secretary david lammy said he was unapologetic about protecting the uk's national interests. the princess royal has returned to the hospital where she was treated after being knocked unconscious by a horse last year during the visit to southmead hospital in bristol, princess anne was able

to thank the doctors and nurses who looked after her. the 74 year old princess described how every day is a bonus after she suffered concussion and head injuries in the accident last june. i'll keep you right up to date with the very latest headunes date with the very latest headlines from the gb news centre. now it's over to the ubiquitous martin daubney. >> for the very latest gb news direct to your smartphone, sign up to news alerts by scanning the qr code or go to gbnews.com/alerts. >> ubiquitous will have been called far worse. now, tonight's show, the conservative party is pledging at last to tighten immigration rules after reform topped a landmark poll for the first time earlier this week. in her first major policy announcement as conservative

party leader, kemi badenoch today has pledged to double the amount of time an immigrant needs to have been in the uk before claiming indefinite leave to remain from 5 to 10 years and to remain from 5 to 10 years and to claim indefinite leave. to remain, individuals must have no criminal record and never use benefits or social housing and prove that their household is a net contributor. well, our political editor, chris hope, spoke to the leader of the opposition earlier today in peterborough. >> to make sure that all of the people who are here have to have a meaningful contribution to the uk. so one of the things that we would be changing is making sure that people are net contributors to the to the uk. british citizenship is not an entitlement. it is not a right. it is a privilege. and we have one of the easiest routes to citizenship. >> well, there we go. but is it all a little bit too little, too late? and more to the point, do we trust anything the conservative party say on immigration? that's the topic of our first debate, and i'm joined in the studio by robert bates.

he's the research director at the centre for migration control, and my wonderful panel, that's alex stafford, the former conservative mp, and fahima mahomed, the broadcaster and the neurodiversity coach. welcome to you one and all. rob, i'm going to start with you. first major policy announcement. it had to be on immigration with nigel farage's party nipping at the heels in fact overtaken kemi badenoch conservative party. i expected a big banger, felt like a damp squib and more to the point, the kind of things that kemi badenoch was lamenting, she said. there is a conveyor belt of people on the pathway of indefinite leave to remain 2 million people by next year, to which most sane people will say, well, that's because you couldn't control the borders for 14 years while in power. my question to you is the policies outlined today, will they have any impact or is it just too little, too late? >> so first of all, i think you're absolutely right. the conservatives have a huge legitimacy issue when it comes to the topic of immigration. i

think they presided over record levels and they have changed the country in many ways, many ways that we are yet to actually feel the effects of when it comes to indefinite leave to remain. this is actually quite an anachronistic status that people are welcomed into. it's effectively an anteroom to citizenship, introduced in 1971, where net migration was actually running in the negatives. so it's a status that is probably served its time. in large part, what they've done is identified correctly, that it is a problem that people, after five years of being able to come into the uk and then sign on claim benefits, have their children given british citizenship and bring over other relatives, i don't think it frankly goes far enough. i think the key point in their plans were that they are not going to retroactively review those that have been given this ilr status. so effectively, those huge numbers that we saw between 2019 and 2020 for the so—called boris wave. the big thing that we are all concerned about getting ilr will, by the time these policies are actually implemented, already have achieved ilr. so it is effectively introducing measures that don't give them the power to improve the situation and to reverse some of the catastrophic immigration policies that they implemented

on their watch. >> rob, do you think the world now is ready for something a bit more? i don't know, red meat? the dial has moved on. look at what's happening across europe. in france, they're saying no benefits for five years for anybody coming into the country. in sweden, they're paying $36,000 for illegal immigrants to leave the country. they're paying to leave the country. they're paying them to get on a flight to go to italy. they're turning back the boats to tunisia, in germany, germany, closing the borders to all illegals, and are even deporting afghans to the taliban . poland, army on the taliban. poland, army on the border, barbed wire on its border. perhaps we could do the same on the beaches . australia same on the beaches. australia points based system. you must have a sponsor. usa declared a border emergency. why not go for the doj, the department of government efficiency in america, and defund all charities that actively undermine government immigration policy in the uk? that's the kind of red meat people seem to be receptive for. and i just think today's announcement by

kemi fell way shy of anything that's going to kind of get those reform voters back into the tory fold. >> so we are in unprecedented times when it comes to immigration with the numbers we've seen. and as such, if we want to bring about some semblance of control, we have to meet that with pretty strident measures. i would argue that allowing indefinite leave to remain, to continue as it is in any form, whether it be five years or ten years, is far too lenient. we shouldn't be having foreign nationals in this country who are able to claim benefits, universal credit, housing benefit and so forth. in 2019, the most recent year for which we have got pre—covid data, there are around about 1 million individuals that were foreign nationals receiving benefits. that's about one sixth of the total foreign national population. i don't think we should be extending to those who are nominally coming to the country to make an economic contribution, this kind of support. and frankly, if people are coming here and they're not able to support themselves and they're reliant on the british taxpayer to effectively bail them out and to fund their lifestyle, then we should not be