Ed Miliband to make major immigration speech as Labour MPs 'told not to focus' on issue

Ed Miliband is to give a major speech on immigration amid reports Labour MPs have been told not to campaign on the issue ahead of the 2015 General Election.

The Daily Telegraph obtained a private strategy document circulated by party bosses, instructing MPs to "move the conversation on" if voters express concerns over border controls and talk about healthcare or housing.

But Labour have hit back at the report and claimed that the paper had taken the document "out of context".

Rachel Reeves, the shadow work and pension secretary, also told the BBC Radio 4's Today Programme that a Labour government would make it a criminal offence to undercut wages by "exploiting migrants".

The comments come ahead of Miliband's speech on immigration in Great Yarmouth.

"We are serving notice on employers who bring workers here under duress or on false terms and pay them significantly lower wages, with worse terms and conditions," Miliband will say.

"This new criminal offence will provide protection to everyone. It will help ensure that when immigrants work here they do not face exploitation themselves and rogue employers are stopped from undercutting the terms and conditions of everyone else."

The Prime Minister David Cameron was left red faced last month as official figures revealed that his net migration promise had been effectively shattered.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that it rocketed to 260,000 in the year to June, up from 182,000 the year before.

The figures mean that it is unlikely that Cameron's net migration target of less than 100,000 by May 2015 will be met.

However, the Conservative party leader was handed a small victory after the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that European Union (EU) member states do not have to give welfare payments to so called "benefit tourists".

The decision, from the highest court in the EU, said countries within the political and economic union can refuse to give welfare payments to citizens who "solely" move to another member state to receive benefits.

"A member state must have the possibility of refusing to grant social benefits to economically inactive union citizens who exercise their right to freedom of movement solely in order to obtain another member state's social assistance although they do not have sufficient resources to claim a right of residence," the court ruled.