'No limit on immigration to Britain'

The Government's Immigration Minister today insisted that there was "no obvious limit to immigration" or on the number of overseas students Britain could take.

As the Tories unveiled new plans for compulsory HIV and TB tests for incomers, Des Browne defended the lack of an upper quota on migrants coming to the country.

Former home secretary David Blunkett triggered controversy last year when he made similar remarks, but Mr Browne said he was right.

"There is no obvious limit in an expanding economy to the amount of work that we can provide to people beyond our indigenous labour force," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Mr Browne added: "There is no obvious limit to the number of students that our universities could educate."

Meanwhile Tory leader Michael Howard said anyone seeking to come to Britain for more than a year should undergo mandatory screening for a range of diseases. Under plans modelled on similar schemes in Australia and New Zealand, potential migrants from outside the EU would be subject to the tests.

The move came as the Conservatives criticised Home Secretary Charles Clarke for his call for more

migration and genuine asylum seekers.

Labour pointed out that Mr Howard himself had said last month that "more genuine refugees would come into the country under our [Tory] policy than would come now".

But the Tories went on the offensive as they claimed that 80 per cent of people diagnosed with heterosexuallyacquired-HIV in the UK were thought to have been infected in Africa.

Under the party's plan anyone found to have HIV could be banned from entering on the grounds that they were a health risk and would impose costs on the taxpayer. Those with TB would be automatically excluded. The Tory plans follow a 20 per cent rise in the number of cases of TB in London and other big cities. There were also 7,000 new cases of HIV in 2003, a 20 per cent rise in one year.

Mr Howard said: "We need to control who is coming to Britain to ensure that they are not a public health risk."

The Home Office's five-year plan has proposals for migrant health checks, including TB.