Cap 'could hit fewer than one in 100 immigrants'

The Government will need to look at other routes, including international students and those joining family members in the UK, if it is to fulfil its pledge to cut net migration from 196,000 to the tens of thousands by 2015, the report by the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee found.

Migrants may even have to be stripped of their right to settle in Britain in the long term to bring the numbers down, the MPs said.

Their report found that even if visas were refused to all economic migrants taking up job offers or seeking work from outside Europe, the numbers would still be cut by less than 20 per cent.

And a five per cent cap, the rate imposed under the current temporary cap, would cut numbers by less than one per cent, the report found.

Other measures to cut net migration will have to be introduced alongside the cap, the committee said, adding: "It is quite clear that, to achieve the reductions it is seeking, the Government will have to make significant changes to student immigration routes."