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There is "little evidence" to suggest that economic migrants from EU accession states, the Middle East and Asia, have increased unemployment in Britain, a Bank of England report has concluded.

The UK's population has grown at a fast pace since the turn of the decade, in part due to the influx of workers from eastern Europe, but unemployment rates have accelerated.

However, the report from David Blanchflower, a member of the Bank's monetary policy committee, says that migrant workers have had "little to do" with increasing levels of unemployment, particularly among 18 to 24-year-olds.

Mr Blanchflower instead attributes the rise to "greater slack" in the labour market.

More than half a million workers from recently acceded eastern EU states work in the UK, and campaign groups have claimed that Britons have had their wages lowered as a result.

But the BoE report, delivered to the Cambridgeshire Chamber of Commerce, dismisses this, stating that increased levels of immigration had reduced overall unemployment and raised the supply potential of the economy.

"In addition, this recent immigration appears to have continued to reduce inflationary pressures," the study says.

Despite saying itself that economic migrants have had a positive impact upon Britain's economy, the government has introduced restrictions on Romanian and Bulgarian citizens seeking work in the UK.

The Baltic states became the EU's newest members when they joined on January 1st this year.