Senior MP: Immigration system is 'in intensive care'

The troubled British immigration system has "moved from A&E into intensive care", according to the chairman of the influential Home Affairs Select Committee.

Keith Vaz said there were 89,000 missing migrants and a backlog of 343,000 visa applications at the Home Office.

Keith Vaz told ITV News Political Correspondent Libby Wiener that it was up to politicians including the Prime Minister to take action on exit checks for migrants.

Read: Cameron: Only Tories can offer 'competence' on immigration'

The Prime Minister has insisted that only the Tories can offer "competence" on dealing with immigration and his plans to reform European welfare rules would be an "absolute requirement" in his proposed renegotiation of the UK's links with Brussels.

An influential Commons committee has highlighted a series of failures in the immigration system but the David Cameron claimed "real progress" had been made in addressing the issue and voting for Labour or Ukip would deliver "chaos".

But the scale of the challenge faced by the Tories, who had set a goal of reducing net migration to the "tens of thousands", was underlined by the scathing Home Affairs Select Committee report.