Two million migrants now fill one in 14 jobs in the UK

Some 1.9million foreign nationals now fill one in every 14 jobs after benefiting from the Government's 'open door' policy.

Junior work and pensions minister James Plaskitt said there were 1.1million foreign nationals working in the UK in 1997.

Since then, 600,000 have either left employment or left the country - but a further 1.4million have taken their place.

Scroll down for more...

A group of Polish plumbers pose for a photo. These plumbers are just some of the millions of immigrants now working in the UK

Mr Plaskitt, in a written Commons reply, stated: "Accounting for these flows into and out of the UK, the total number of foreign nationals in employment in the year to the second quarter of 2007 is 1.9million, a rise of 800,000 since 1997."

The figures reveal the scale of Labour's reliance on foreign workers.

They will also fuel the concerns of business leaders that a generation of British children are in danger of going 'from school to welfare' while migrants fill skill shortages.

A separate set of figures released yesterday showed how the influx of migrants from Eastern Europe has transformed the population of towns across the country.

Unlike earlier waves of migrants, they have not gravitated towards London and the South-East.

Workers from Eastern Europe now make up one in ten of the population in Boston, Lincolnshire; one in 20 in Northampton; and almost one in 25 in Herefordshire.

The search for work has led migrants to Dungannon in Northern Ireland, as well as to the Western Isles, Orkney and Cornwall, according to the Office for National Statistics.

A spokesman said: "Areas with the highest ratios of Eastern European migrant worker registrations to population are spread between London, the East and West Midlands, the East of England and Northern Ireland."

The ONS breakdown showed that Lithuanians have concentrated in Morpeth in Northumberland, along with other areas of the North, the East and Northern Ireland.

Slovaks have concentrated in South Oxfordshire and Congleton in Cheshire. Latvians have headed for the Western Isles and the East Riding of Yorkshire, while Czechs have formed communities in the Orkneys and Barnet in North London.

The Hungarian population is most concentrated in Great Yarmouth.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg said: "Every time the Government produces new figures like this the public rightly ask whether the system is being run competently and fairly.

"If the Government wants to restore public confidence in the immigration system as a whole it must now take radical action to improve our border controls, plan for the effects of significant population change on our public services and deal with the legacy of industrial-scale illegal immigration."