Britain wants to control immigration, evaluating student visa

Visiting British Immigration Minister Damian Green said his country was also evaulating the student visa provisions to ensure they support the best and brightest who go to the UK for higher studies and prevent those "who pretend to want to study in order to work".

"I am here in India to explain the changes to the UK's immigration system and the reasons for them. Many highly skilled people from Punjab and other parts of India have been coming to the UK for years. Britian has benefited from this migration and will continue to do so.

"But this migration must be controlled in order to maximise the benefits--both for the UK and those who are coming to work and live," Green told a press conference here this evening.

He said the British Government was committed to reducing migration to the UK "and we are currently consulting on limiting economic migration".

"We have also decided to keep in place the zero limit on unskilled migration. But our government continues to want to attract the brightest and the best--the investors and the entrepreneurs--the people that make our economies grow", Green said.

He said "there is no contradiction in wanting to reduce migration and wanting to encourage inward investment and talented migrants. We can do both."

To a question, Green, who met Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and the DGP seeking their cooperation to help stop illegal immigration from Punjab to the UK,  said the new immigration policy of Brtain will be in place by April next year and sought to allay fears that the new cap on skilled labour would act as a bar on skilled professionals.

Answering another querry, he said that on an average currently 100 illegal Indian immigrants were being deported back to their country every month while nearly 200 Indians were lodged in various jails in the UK.