Mass immigration from Eastern Europe has driven down wages in parts of Britain and put pressure on essential services, the Government's official advisors have warned.

A new report by the Migration Advisory Committee said some areas of the country are 'struggling to cope' with high levels of immigration that have put pressures on public services like the NHS, schools and transport.

The committee found in some areas of the country where there has been an influx of foreign workers there was a 'negative impact on the wages of the low paid'.

It also attacked the weak 'compliance and enforcement' of the minimum wage - with poor inspections and 'feeble' penalties. The report added: 'An employer can expect a visit from HMRC once every 250 years and a prosecution once in a million years'.

The Migration Advisory Committee's report showed how more Britons were leaving than moving back to the country from abroad. At the same time around 200,000 foreigners came to the UK every year

The report also revealed that low skilled men and women had been badly hit since 1997. In total, there are now a million fewer low skilled British workers in jobs than there were when Labour came to powert

Home Secretary Theresa May's official immigration advisors today warned that poorly paid workers in some parts of Britain were seeing their wages eroded by cheap foreign labour

POOR CHILDREN CANNOT COMPETE The Migration Advisory Committee attacked the education system for failing to prepare children for work. It said this was leaving British youngsters unable to compete against better qualified immigrants. Sir David Metcalf - the committee's chair - said the Government target for school pupils to achieve five or more GCSEs at grades A to C meant schools could not 'devote resources to the top end and bottom end of the ability range'. As a result, less academically talented pupils were not prepared for the world of work, he said. Companies take on immigrants because their literacy and numeracy is better than young British candidates, he added. Sir David said many firms also believe British workers are less good at 'getting out of bed in the morning' for shift work and dealing with customers politely. Advertisement

A spokesman for the committee said: 'The arrival of one million migrants in low-skilled jobs during the last 10 years has left local authorities struggling to cope with rapid population change.'

The official report revealed that some 75 per cent of the 2.9 million rise in the foreign-born population in the past decade was concentrated in just a quarter of Town councils - putting pressure on housing and public services in those areas.

One study of pay in London, the report said, had found the 20 per cent lowest paid had seen wages fall by 15 per cent on average.

It added that schools in some areas of the country had seen a 'marked increase in the number of migrant pupils', adding that this may 'impose additional costs'.

Overall, the report stated: 'The impacts of migrants on average wages.. tended to be positive at the top of the wage distribution and negative at the bottom.'

Labour MP Frank Field said: 'This report sheds a small amount of light on what has been blindingly obvious for a long time to people at the bottom.'

The committee warned that future EU expansion – with eight candidate countries containing 90 million people earning a third to half of average EU wage levels – needed to be managed better than before.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics shows in 2013 there were 2.1 million people from overseas working in low-skilled occupations. Of these, 1.2 million were born outside of the EU.

But Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, the two major enforcement bodies designed to protect vulnerable workers, are under-resourced and their penalties are too weak to tackle the exploitation of migrant workers in low-skilled jobs.

Professor Sir David Metcalf, chair of the MAC, said: 'Our flexible labour market has served us well. But vulnerable low-skilled workers, whether British or foreign, need protection.

'There is incomplete compliance with and enforcement of labour regulations, and regulatory resources and penalties are inadequate.'

The Migration Advisory Committee released a map showing that low skilled European immigrants were concentrated in Lincolnshire, Norfolk and London - with much of the North East and Scotland barely touched

UKIP leader Nigel Farage told the European Parliament that Britain could vote to stay in the EU if free movement was scrapped

Sir David added: 'A typical employer can expect a compliance visit just once in 250 years and a prosecution once in a million years.

'We must also redouble our efforts to equip our young people with the skills to compete in a flexible job market.'

Across the country, the report found that migrant workers over the last 20 years have not had a 'major impact' on the pay of British workers or on people's prospects of finding a job.

A Government spokeswoman today defended the enforcement of the minimum wage.

She said: 'The vast majority of employers pay the minimum wage. Our targeted, intelligence-led approach shows us that non-compliance on the adult rate is less than 0.8 per cent.

'For those that don’t comply the Government has taken action. To deter flouters, we have quadrupled the financial penalties up to £20,000 per employee and named and shamed 30 employers for failing to pay the basic rate. HMRC act on every minimum wage complaint reported and last year alone found £4.65 million in back pay owed to over 22,600 workers.