A government minister has signalled that a French-style ban on women wearing burqas is unlikely to be replicated in the UK, because, he said, the idea was "unBritish" and "undesirable".

The immigration minister, Damian Green, said banning Muslim women from covering their faces in public would be at odds with the UK's "tolerant and mutually respectful society".

The move to ban the burqa was backed by France's lower house last week. With public support, it is expected to pass through the upper house in September. The law will fine women who continue wearing the face covering €150 (£117). Men who make women wear the cover will be given a one-year prison sentence or £25,000 fine.

Philip Hollobone, Conservative MP for Kettering, has tabled a private member's bill calling for parliament to act similarly, saying he personally will not meet women wearing either the burqa or niqab but instead will ask them to "communicate with him differently" by sending a letter.

But Green told the Sunday Telegraph: "I stand personally on the feeling that telling people what they can and can't wear, if they're just walking down the street, is a rather un-British thing to do. We're a tolerant and mutually respectful society.

"There are times, clearly, when you've got to be able to identify yourself, and people have got to be able to see your face, but I think it's very unlikely and it would be undesirable for the British parliament to try and pass a law dictating what people wore."

He said he thought the numbers of women in France wearing the burqa were limited. He added: "They [the French parliament] are doing it for demonstration effects. The French political culture is very different. They are an aggressively secular state. They can ban the burqa, they ban crucifixes in schools and things like that. We have schools run explicitly by religions. I think there's absolutely no read-across to immigration policy from what the French are doing about the burqa."