David Hanson MP, shadow immigration minister, responding to government splits on the issue of the end of transitional controls, said:

“The Government is hopelessly split on its approach to the end of transitional controls on Dec 31 for Bulgaria and Romania. Rather than deal with genuine concerns in a calm and measured way the Prime Minister has sought headlines and panicked on issues he could have dealt with much earlier. Once again the rhetoric fails to match the reality with this government on immigration.

"The government should be dealing with the real issues of concern including the impact of low skilled migration on the labour market. There must be effective enforcement of the minimum wage, gang-master legislation must be extended to new areas, and recruitment agencies should be prevented from recruiting only from abroad. So far the Government has refused to take action in any of these areas.

"Government measures could have been taken much earlier and a sense of panic and hyperbole could have been avoided. Instead we have the chaos of the Prime Minister and Home Secretary pretending to pull up the draw bridge and the Lib Dems doing nothing to reform the labour market - both approaches deeply damaging to Britain and local workers.”

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