Government has lost track of immigration - Huhne

12.00.00pm GMT Tue 1st Apr 2008

Commenting on the House of Lords report on immigration, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said:

"This report makes it clear that the Government has completely lost track of the number of people who live in this country. No wonder there is a total inability to manage immigration or create policies that deal with its effects.

"It is impossible for local authorities to plan for the impact on housing and services if they are working with such large amounts of erroneous data.

"We have to be tougher on non-EU immigrants precisely because there are so many more EU immigrants than the Government predicted. We must get back control of our borders with an effective national border force and proper entry and exit checks.

"The South East of England is now more densely populated than the Netherlands. We need better immigration control together with more active help for existing immigrants such as English language teaching."