Minister's call for UK immigration curb

The number of migrants coming to Britain must be curbed to bring population growth to heel, Immigration Minister Phil Woolas warned today.

In his strongest comments on the subject since taking up the job earlier this month, he said that increasingly tough economic conditions made immigration "extremely thorny".

And he said that the Government would not allow the population to expand endlessly.

Mr Woolas said: "If people are being made unemployed, the question of immigration becomes extremely thorny."

He added: "It's been too easy to get into this country in the past and it's going to get harder."

Mr Woolas appeared to signal a harder line approach to immigration than the points-based system introduced recently to attract migrants most valuable to the economy.

Suggesting the need for a new upper limit on numbers, he added: "There has to be a balance between the number of people coming in and the number of people leaving."

Latest figures show the population grew by nearly 2 million people to 60,975,000 between 2001 and 2007.

But ministers have previously resisted calls for an overall limit on immigration.

Sir Andrew Green, the chairman of Migrationwatch, which argues for balanced migration, said Mr Woolas was the first Labour minister to link immigration and the population.

But Habib Rahman, of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said: "This could drive a coach and horses through any notion of managed migration through the Government's new points-based system... on which it held long and detailed consultations before unveiling it as the answer to the country's economic needs."