Prime Minister David Cameron has ruled out restricting the main route into the UK for IT workers from overseas under his government's crackdown on immigration.

Cameron said intra-company transfers "should not be included in what we are looking at".

His brief comment during Prime Minister's Questions followed the publication of a report from the Commons Home Affairs Committee warning that the crackdown is doomed to fail without additional measures. It argued that because most incomers come from the European Economic Area they are not subject to UK government control under EU rules.

The committee recommended intra-company transfers of up to two years should be exempt from the crackdown. This is despite criticism from professional staffing body APSCo, which argues that many hundreds of staff are being brought into the country via intra-company transfers but are not subject to the same employment laws as are faced by staff originating in the UK.

Cameron did not refer in his brief comment to a particular limit for exempt intra-company transfers.