Immigrants face £200 fee

Tony Blair is to launch an unprecedented immigration clampdown by charging some overseas workers up to £200 each to get their families into Britain.

In a dramatic move before the general election, migrant workers will face a charge if they appeal against bans on their families joining them from overseas.

Together with new measures to deport more failed asylum seekers, the move will form a key plank of Labour's campaign, it emerged today.

A five-year plan for immigration is set to be published by the Home Office on Monday after winning final approval from the Cabinet.

General election chief Alan Milburn admitted Labour's own private polling shows the public is "angry" at what it

sees as abuse by migrants of the present system. Labour is determined to outflank the Tories on immigration, and the five-year plan will include new measures aimed at slashing the number of overseas entrants.

At their heart is the proposal to impose a hefty fee on work-permit holders who challenge refusals to grant entry to their family members entry. The fee has yet to be settled but a figure of £200 is being discussed by ministers.

The hope is that the charge would act as a deterrent to those who want to let their family members stay in the UK for years while mounting repeated appeals.

"It is to deter hundreds and hundreds of appeals. One of the reasons the system is so congested is you have thousands of people on appeal," a minister said. The number of foreignwork-permit holders has risen from 25,000 in 1995 to 60,000 in 2000. Last year, it soared to 145,000 as the Government struggled to find people to fill the skills gap.

But many are allowed to bring their spouses and other relatives, swelling the immigration figures by many times, critics claim.

A points-based system may also be introduced for work permits so that only those with the right skills to meet specific job vacancies are allowed in.

The Tories have proposed a quota plan to impose an upper limit on the number of asylum seekers and immigrants allowed into the UK every year.

The Conservatives want to restrict asylum to between 8,000 and 20,000 cases a year, because they say 80 per cent of current applications turn out to be bogus.

Mr Blair claims that the Tory plan is unworkable because it would require a British government to withdraw from the UN Convention on Refugees and even break European Union law.

The Prime Minister has himself repeatedly expressed concern at the low number of deportations of failed asylum seekers, and the five-year plan is expected to include new moves to tackle the problem.

Mr Blair says that it is "neither-extremist nor racist" to be worried about the issue.

He has set a target that by the end of this year for the number of forced removals each month should exceed the number of new unfounded applications.

At current rates, about 2,000 asylum requests are turned down each month while only 1,000 failed applicants are deported.