Rupert Murdoch has attacked the Conservatives for proposing an overall cap on immigration.

The chairman of News Corporation, the media company which publishes The Sun and The Times, as well as broadcasts Sky News, said the government needed to act to stop illegal immigration, but he supported the idea of continued legal immigration.

Murdoch was speaking at a media briefing during the Milken Institute conference in Los Angeles.

The Sun has so far not yet declared which party it intends to back.

Murdoch said the Labour government's move to a points system for potential immigrants was the correct approach because it would enable skilled immigrants to keep settling in Britain.

"The idea of a points system for immigrants who want to come and live there who would enrich the country in the ways immigrants have this country [the US] I think is great. The Conservatives want to do the same thing but they would put an absolute cap on it and I think that's wrong," he said.

"I don't think you need to put a cap on it unless you started to see a lot of unemployment arising out of it, which I think is highly unlikely. If you bring skilled people into the country I think it would enrich the whole country and create a lot more jobs. I am pro-immigrant."