Immigration Minister Phil Woolas has declined to commit himself to a specific cap on immigration despite his earlier pledge that the UK Government would not allow the population to exceed 70 million.

Immigration Minister Phil Woolas has declined to commit himself to a specific cap on immigration despite his earlier pledge that the UK Government would not allow the population to exceed 70 million.

Amid demands from the Tories for an annual limit on non-EU immigration and calls for a limit on the numbers allowed to permanently settle in the UK, Mr Woolas stressed there should be no "automaticity" between working in the UK and getting citizenship.

But he said it was "very difficult" to say what any cap should be for workers from non-EU countries.

Pressed in a BBC interview to say whether the UK's population should rise above 70 million, he would only refer to the government's announced policy of a points-based migration system.

The minister had said in a newspaper interview over the weekend that increasingly tough economic conditions made the issue of immigration "extremely thorny" and it had been "too easy to get into this country in the past and it's going to get harder".

But he came under fire from members of his own party who suggested he was "pandering to right-wing extremists", a suggestion branded "deeply hurtful" yesterday by Mr Woolas.

Labour MP Frank Field and Tory Nicholas Soames, who both chair a cross-party group calling for balanced migration, welcomed what they saw as a shift in policy.

The pair said: "Clearly, the government is looking at fundamental changes to the immigration system - for example by breaking the link between giving non-EU citizens the right to work here and allowing them to settle permanently in the UK.

"This would be a great step forward, but what we really need is a clear commitment to putting a limit on the number of people allowed to settle here. What we need now is real action, not just tough talk."

In an interview on The Politics Show, Mr Woolas was asked if he still thought there should be a cap on the number of immigrants coming to the UK. He said: "I think there is a lot of nonsense talked about the cap . . . the EU population can come and go, just as we can live in Spain or France, so too can others come to this country. So it is very difficult to say, even if you are in favour of a cap, what it should be.

"But what we can do is look at the period of time and a work permit of course limits the period of time that a person could come to this country to work."

On the specifics of his comments suggesting the government would not allow a rise above 70 million, he said: "Frank Field and Nicholas Soames raised this point that if you extrapolate recent trends the population of the country would go up by seven million.

"We are already introducing changes with the points-based system and I can give assurances to people that that sort of figure is not on the horizon. The points-based system, had we introduced it a year ago there would be 12% less migratory workers in this country now than there are at the moment.

"We think this is a good mechanism but it doesn't affect people's rights, it has got nothing to do with the debate about race relations and permanent settlement that some people have reacted to my comments yesterday."

The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show the UK population grew by nearly two million people to 60,975,000 between 2001 and 2007.