Foreign nationals seeking British citizenship will have to prove they can speak English, have paid taxes, undertake voluntary work in the community and have broken no laws under a toughening of immigration controls unveiled in February.

Home secretary Jacqui Smith told MP’s that migrants will also have to demonstrate a degree of integration into the local community as part of a wider government strategy aimed at better controlling immigration – an issue which opinion polls suggest is of concern to a majority of voters in the UK. The move which is seen by some as an “Immigrant tax” has been criticised by immigration campaigners and opposition politicians as unfair, discriminatory and a gimmick.

The new “tax”, which could be as high as 10 per cent of the standard £200 pound on a sixmonth visa fee for non-European visitors, is expected to raise millions of pounds for the exchequer and will be placed in a “British Trust Fund” to help pay for the use of public services such as schools, hospitals and emergency services. The special levy will affect non- European migrants to Britain but eastern Europeans - currently the largest group of foreign migrants - will paradoxically escape the charge because they do not need visas.

The “tax”, which is offi cially meant to force foreigners to contribute towards the extra expense incurred by public services, has been derided by the Immigration Advisory Service (IAS), the UK’s largest charity providing representation and advice in immigration and asylum law.

Keith Best, head of the IAS responded by saying; “Non-European migrants would be unfairly taxed because most foreign workers were healthy young men, who did not use hospitals or schools. He said it was unfortunate that “migrants are being made the ‘milch cow’ (term used to refer to an easily obtained income source) to make up the shortfall in government fi nances”. David Davis, the Conservativeshadow home secretary, said the imposition of a small premium on top of immigration fees would “barely scratch the surface” of the full cost to taxpayers. “It is, in short, a gimmick.”

It was, he said, a “complicated and bureaucratic solution” when a simpler option would have been to put a limit on the number of immigrants allowed in to the UK.

Tom Brake, the Liberal Democrats’ home affairs spokesman, said that the proposals would make immigrants “scapegoats” for government failures. “The government’s chronic mismanagement of the immigration system has shattered public confi dence and left public services in some parts of the country severely overstretched,” he said. “Their solution appears to be to heap further charges on working migrants, who already fund public services like everyone else through the taxes they pay. What kind of fi rst step to citizenship is it to ask new people to pay more for public services in a country where we’re all allegedly equal?”

The proposals come after months of constant complaints from MPs in constituencies with high migrant populations that public services are overstretched and near breaking point. Restrictions for criminals Under the plans committing a criminal offence would slow the process down, or possibly halt an application.

Winning citizenship in future would take at least six years from the point of arrival in the UK. There will be a new stage of “probationary citizenship,” when applicants must prove they are living by British rules, Smith said.

“If people won’t play by the rules in this country their journey to citizenship should be halted or slowed down,” said Smith.

European Citizens Although the proposals will not affect EU citizens, the Prime minister Gordon Brown defended the proposals adding that the UK was considering ways to remove EU citizens in the UK who are not either employed, studying or fi nancially self-suffi cient after three months.

Furthermore, changes will apply to new arrivals after the new laws are passed, and not to foreigners already living in the UK, so reforms are only likely to affect non European migrants arriving from 2010.