Gordon Brown today announced a review of student visa rules in a major speech on immigration clearly designed to head off the growing electoral threat from the British National Party.

Mr Brown announced that the review, reporting next month, will consider whether visas should be granted only to foreign students on degree and postgraduate courses, and stopped for those seeking to take shorter courses leading to lower-level qualifications.

In addition, the Prime Minister promised that local workers will be given additional opportunities to secure available jobs, with the extension from two to four weeks of the period for which they must be advertised in JobCentres before employers seek to recruit overseas.

This would be coupled with a scaling up in training opportunities to ensure that the jobs which become available as Britain emerges from recession go to the resident population, rather than to a new wave of incomers from abroad.

Mr Brown insisted that immigration must not be made a “taboo” issue tackled only by fringe parties, but should be “a question to be dealt with at the heart of our politics”. People who voice concerns about migration should not be branded “racist”, he said.

In an attempt to assure voters that he understands their concerns over immigration, he said: “If people ask me, do I get it? Yes. I get it. I have been listening and I understand and I am today announcing new changes...

“As growth returns, I want to see rising levels of skills, wages and employment among those resident here, rather than employers having to resort to recruiting people from abroad.”

In his first major speech on migration for almost two years, the Prime Minister acknowledged that the impact of immigration is felt differently by employers, who want to be able to attract talent from all over the world, and by the middle-classes, who benefit from the extra availability of plumbers and nannies, than it is by the working classes, who see the incomers as rivals for jobs and houses.

“If the main effect of immigration on your life is to make it easier to find a plumber, or when you see doctors and nurses from overseas in your local hospital, you are likely to think more about the benefits of migration than the possible costs,” he said.

“But if you’re living in a town which hasn’t seen much inward migration before, you may worry about whether immigration will undermine wages and the job prospects of your children - and whether they will be able to get housing anywhere near you.”

As expected, Mr Brown also promised to cut thousands of jobs from the Government’s shortage occupation list, for which foreign workers can gain access to the UK because of a lack of local people with the skills to do the jobs.

Hospital consultants, civil engineers, aircraft engineers and ship’s officers are being removed from the list of in-demand occupations which Britain needs to recruit from abroad, he said. The list could be narrowed further during the next year with the possible removal of more engineering roles, skilled chefs and care workers.

Times Recommends

• He stole my son, now I’m alone in hell
• Back on the air, but don’t mention Mugabe
• Ten kitchen gadget gift ideas