David Cameron has blamed the Liberal Democrats for holding back a crackdown on immigration as he unveiled plans to force sectors to train more Britons.
The Conservative Prime Minister said he could now press ahead with reforms after winning an outright victory at the General Election.
New figures show that net migration last year soared to 318,000, much higher than the Tory leader's ambition of 100,000.
But Mr Cameron has come under fire for his plans, which also include a new offence of illegal working which would allow police to seize the wages of illegal migrants.
The proposals will form part of an Immigration Bill in next week's Queen's Speech.
Earlier Mr Cameron had said that he wanted to make the UK a less attractive place for some migrants to come to work.
In response Scottish Government minister for Europe and International Development Humza Yousaf said that migrants made "important economic, social and cultural contributions to our communities".
Striking a markedly different tone he said that the Scottish Government "work hard to attract the best international talent to Scotland and those who choose to make Scotland their home will always be welcomed."
Under the Tory plans banks will also be forced to check accounts against illegal migrant databases, while employers will be banned from carrying out overseas recruitment without advertising in the UK.
Mr Cameron also confirmed he would set up a new taskforce to cut the number of professionals whose skills are deemed by the Migration Advisory Committee to be in short supply.
The Prime Minister predicted the move would encourage many industries to train more Britons.
Mr Cameron said that to sustain the UK's success "immigration needs to be controlled.
"After all, that was the clear instruction at the election. With this Immigration Bill, with these other measures, with our EU renegotiations and with a fully Conservative government, we will do just that.
"Our approach will be tougher, fairer and faster. It will put an end to the houses packed full of illegal workers, stop people stalling deportation with spurious appeals, give British people the skills to do the jobs we need and deliver what people want - what they voted for.
"We've got the majority to do that now. We're not wasting a second. So we're going to get on - and we're going to do it."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.Â
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.Â
That is invaluable.Â
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article