標題: Immigration minister calls for cap on newcomers Phil Woolas is applauded by anti-immigration group Migrationwatch but leaves senior Labour colleague 'astonished' with call for quota on immigrants # Lee Glendinning # guardian.co.uk, # Saturday October 18 2008 11.15 BST The number of migrants coming into the UK must be curbed and subject to strict limitations because of the economic crisis, according to the immigration minister Phil Woolas. The increasingly tough economic conditions and people losing their jobs made the immigration issue "extremely thorny", he told the Times. The government would not allow the population to expand endlessly, he said. "It's been too easy to get into this country in the past and it's going to get harder," Woolas said. A cap on immigration would be needed should numbers rise above a certain point, Woolas said, which would mean changes to the points-based system introduced to attract migrants considered valuable to the economy. "This government isn't going to allow the population to go up to 70 million," he said. "There has to be a balance between the number of people coming in and the number of people leaving." Woolas's comments are in contrast to ministers who have previously resisted calls for an overall limit on immigration. Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Commons home affairs select committee, said he would be "astonished" at a Labour immigration minister "in effect changing the policy". "His predecessor and the home secretary have made it very clear they do not support a quota," Vaz said. Latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show the population grew by nearly 2 million people to 60,975,000 between 2001 and 2007. A Home Office spokesperson said that the point-based system provided a "powerful and flexible" set of controls which could be adapted according to business needs. "Our tough new Australian(-style) points system plus our plans for newcomers to earn their citizenship will reduce overall numbers of economic migrants coming to Britain and the numbers awarded permanent settlement," she said. "Crucially the points system means only the migrants with the skills Britain needs can come - and no more." Keith Best, the chief executive of the Immigration Advisory Service, said quotas were not workable in a modern trading economy. "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," Best said. The former Labour minister Frank Field, who has called for tougher controls on immigration, said the government's position was "moving step by step". "I think the key thing that we must now look to the government for is that they break the link between coming here to work and getting citizenship, thereby growing the population by creating more citizens," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. Sir Andrew Green, the chairman of anti-immigration group Migrationwatch said 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. 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." http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/oct/18/immigrationpolicy-immigration 新聞來源: (需有正確連結) -- --

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