UK NEWS

'IT'S BEEN TOO EASY TO GET INTO UK AND IMMIGRATION MUST BE CURBED'

Phil Woolas warned today that immigration must be curbed

Saturday October 18,2008

By Julia White for express.co.uk

THE number of migrants coming to Britain must be curbed in these unstable economic times, 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 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.

"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: “This Government isn’t going to allow the population to go up to 70 million.

“There has to be a balance between the number of people coming in and the number of people leaving.”

Latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show that 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.

“If they succeed in delivering, they will have done our country a considerable service,” he said.

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.”