The former Bishop of Rochester has come out in support of the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey after he called for a “reasonable limit” to be set on the number of migrants entering the UK.

Michael Nazir-Ali said Lord Carey and the cross-party Balanced Immigration Group were right to call for manifesto pledges from the major parties to prevent the UK population from rising above 70 million.

Lord Carey said last week that migrants coming to the UK must have an understanding of the country’s democratic values, history, and commitment to the English language. His comments prompted anger from critics who accused him of wanting to give priority to migrants with Christian values over those from non-Christian populations.

Mr Nazir-Ali backed the former archbishop, saying that a small country like the UK could not take in an indefinite number of people, as he warned of overcrowding in metropolitan areas and increasing strain on social services, education and the NHS.

He acknowledged that some immigration was still necessary to buoy up the workforce in the face of the UK’s ageing population but warned against allowing immigrants to settle in the UK without any assimilation to its values, culture and language.

“The question, however, is not simply one of numbers but also of the quality of would-be immigrants,” he said.

“All would-be immigrants should be willing to adapt to living in a context shaped by traditional British values, which have been largely derived from the Judaeo-Christian tradition.

“This does not, of course, exclude their own contribution once they are here, but we should expect not hostility but a desire to become good residents or, for some, citizens of the country to which they have come of their own volition.”

Mr Nazir-Ali said the “politically-correct” multiculturalism of the UK had led “not to engagement and mutual learning between the different communities but to the isolation and segregation which has given extremists the chance to propagate their noxious ideology, especially among the young and impressionable”.

He warned that radical Islam could take root in the UK if ethnic and faith communities were allowed to become isolated.

“The mobility of young people in terms of travel, education and interaction should be encouraged. People from Islamic lands, in particular, should not be isolated by drawing a cordon sanitaire around them,” he said.

“This is a temptation because of the security situation but it could be counter-productive in the long-run as it may drive such populations into the arms of extremist elements. This would be immensely harmful to global western interests.

“Minority communities in such countries, Christians, Jews, Bahais, Ahmadis and Zoroastrians, should particularly be able to maintain contact with the outside world as their survival may depend on it.”

He went on to say that not every person coming to the UK should be thought of as a settler and called for a more even distribution of asylum seekers across the EU, saying that the UK was “getting more than its fair share of those claiming to be refugees”.

He concluded: “For those who come here to settle permanently we need an integrated strategy on immigration citizenship and security where there is real joined-up thinking in this area which moves beyond the mandarins of Whitehall to include those who have experience and expertise in the cultural, religious and ideological dimensions of this question.

“Lord Carey and his co-signatories have begun an important debate. Let us not waste this opportunity but use if for the good of all who live here.”