PM Brown pledged to curb the entry of doctors and other professionals

LONDON:

Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged to curb the entry of doctors and other professionals from outside Europe into the UK in a new crackdown on immigration, a move likely to adversely impact thousands of Indians.

Signalling a major shift in the Labour government's immigration policy, the Prime Minister vowed to "stem rising tide of migration". He said his government plans to restrict the points based system for determining which migrants can work in Britain.

"One of the reasons that immigration will fall is the tightening of the new points system and it will continue to tighten over the next few months," Brown told the Daily Mail in an interview ahead of a major speech on immigration today.

Even as insisting that immigration had been a source of "economic, social and cultural strength" for Britain, Brown said the points-based system, introduced last year to control the entry of non-EU citizens to the UK by grading incomers on the skills they can offer the country, would be further toughened up.

In a major policy change, Brown is expected to announce that the door is being closed to non-EU hospital consultants, civil engineers, aircraft engineers and ship's officers, the report said.

"I know people worry about whether immigration undermines their wages and the job prospects of their children and they also worry about whether they will get a decent home for their families," he underlined.

Afghan Mission To Continue-Brown

The comments come after five soldiers were killed in Helmand on Tuesday by a policeman being trained by UK forces.
The prime minister will say the mentoring must continue "because it is what distinguishes a liberating army from an army of occupation".

In his speech, he is expected to pledge the UK "will not walk away".

His speech will come as the House of Lords debates the condition of the armed forces.
'Sustained pressure'

The UK's most senior general in Afghanistan, Jim Dutton, has told the BBC the killing of the five soldiers, in Helmand province on Tuesday, "probably won't be the last" such "atrocity".

Labour MP and former Foreign Office minister Kim Howells has argued that troops should be withdrawn.
However, the government says the Afghan mission is vital to ensuring al-Qaeda does not increase its powers, and will therefore help improve the UK's defences against terrorist attacks.

In his speech in London, Mr Brown is expected to argue that the main terrorist threat to the UK continues to emanate from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

He will add that so long as military action has a "suppressive effect on al-Qaeda", which continues to plot attacks on Britain from the region, "we cannot, must not and will not walk away".

Mr Brown will also say: "We will not be deterred, dissuaded or diverted from taking whatever measures are necessary to protect our security...

"We will not give up this strategy of mentoring [police and soldiers], because it is what distinguishes a liberating army from an army of occupation."

The prime minister will say that the Afghan army should grow from its current strength of 80,000 men to more than 130,000 by the end of 2010.

He is expected to predict that the "heroism" of personnel currently serving in Afghanistan will be taught to future generations "just as in the past we learned of the bravery and sacrifice of British soldiers in the First and Second World Wars".

Afghan President Hamid Karzai was recently re-elected, amid allegations of widespread corruption.
Commenting on the election, Mr Brown is expected to say: "He needs a contract with the Afghan people; a contract against which Afghans, as well as the international community, can judge his success.

"International support depends on the scale of his ambition and the degree of his achievement in five key areas: security, governance, reconciliation, economic development, and engagement with Afghanistan's neighbours."

The death of another soldier in Sangin, central Helmand, on Thursday, brings the number of UK personnel killed in Afghanistan since the mission began in October 2001 to 230.

During the defence debate in the House of Lords, peers including former Chiefs of the Defence Staff Lord Boyce and Lord Craig of Radley are expected to speak.