IMMIGRATION LIMIT PLAN SLAMMED

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

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

But Keith Best, the chief executive of the Immigration Advisory Service, said immigration quotas were not workable in a modern trading economy.

"What are you going to say to the employer who is desperate to fill a job, but can't find anyone suitable in the European economic area?" he said. "Are you going to say 'sorry, the quota has been filled, you'll have to wait till next year'?

"What we want to see is migration benefiting the economic and social needs of the UK, and unfortunately when politicians start interfering, you end up with a command and control economy that we used to see in eastern Europe before the fall of communism."

With the economy facing difficulties, the UK was likely to see more unemployment in the coming years, and the Government should turn its attention to making sure the workforce can be retrained to meet new needs, he said.

"I am surprised that a Government minister, however new to the job, is talking in terms of the need for a quota, when that is Conservative Party policy," he added.

Mr Woolas said it had been too easy for immigrants to get into the UK in the past, and it would become harder in the future.

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."