Tories welcome Cameron's tough talk on immigration

The Conservative leader also confirmed that he would push up air taxes and hit airlines with new levies for flying half-empty planes.

Mr Cameron said his party had "fire in its belly" for a snap autumn poll, but refused to reveal whether he would step down should he fail to defeat Gordon Brown at the next election.

Having until now deliberately avoided talk of immigration, Mr Cameron declared that it was putting too much pressure on housing and public services in an interview on Newsnight last night. He said that the level of migration had been "too high" under Labour.

"I do think that people have a very real concern about levels of immigrationand not because of different cultures or the colour of their skin," he said. "Concern is about services. It's the pressure on schools, pressure on hospitals, pressure on housing.

"It's important to understand that if your child is going into a reception class and suddenly 20 new kids turn up because lots more families have arrived, then that is a big pressure."

Mr Cameron made clear the next Tory government would not allow a repeat of the influx of Poles and others from new EU entrant countries. And for those from outside the EU, a cap would be placed on numbers.

He said he would put up green taxes, particularly on air travel. He also signalled for the first time that green taxes would go up by exactly the same amount as "family taxes" would go down.

"Brown has wrecked green taxes because they have been used as another stealth tax," he said. "I think people will have faith in green taxes if we say every pound on a green tax will come off a family tax."

Mr Cameron confirmed Standard reports that his party is looking at a new "per flight tax" to replace air passenger duty. "If people want to fly they should recognise that they have to make a contribution to curbing climate change," he said. "One of the key things is that at the moment an empty flight to Spain pays the same as a full flight to Spain and that's crazy."

Mr Cameron also made plain he would crack down hard on crime. He said: "When people break the law, I am a Conservative. I believe in tough punishment. I worked for Michael Howard, for heaven's sake, who put through some very tough changes to the criminal justice system."