Search: Johnson immigration policy
Home Secretary Alan Johnson's admission the Government had made mistakes over immigration policy has been described by one of his predecessors as an "honest appraisal".
In a speech, Mr Johnson said Labour had been "maladroit" in its handling of the issue and also accepted some parts of Britain were "disproportionately" affected by immigration, with an influx of new arrivals putting a "strain" on jobs and services.
Former Home Secretary John Reid said Mr Johnson was "right to accept that mistakes have been made in the past" and said the benefits of immigration had to be weighed against social costs.
He said: "Immigration is too important a social issue to be ignored or treated with complacency and an honest appraisal reinforces his reassurance that it is being treated with the seriousness it deserves."
Mr Johnson said ministers had ignored for "far too long" problems in the immigration system that led to huge backlogs of asylum seekers and foreign national prisoners.
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He told an audience at the Royal Society for the Arts in central London on Monday: "Whilst I accept that governments of both persuasions, including this one, have been maladroit in their handling of this issue, I do believe that the UK is now far more successful at tackling migration than most of its European and north American neighbours."
He added: "The legacy problems with unreturned foreign national prisoners and asylum seekers may have accumulated under previous administrations, but they continued to be ignored for far too long on our watch."
The speech signalled a tougher line on migration from Mr Johnson, who has made few significant pronouncements on the subject.
Only months into the job, he told a committee of MPs he did not "lie awake at night" worrying about the population hitting 70 million. Mr Johnson rejected what he called "fashionable" criticisms that mainstream politicians "shied away" from talking about immigration.
Mr Johnson also criticised Tory plans for a cap on migrant numbers as "arbitrary" and claimed it would hurt businesses who needed to hire skilled staff. Tory claims of an "open door" immigration system under Labour were a return to "dog whistle politics" he said.
