A government minister has signalled that a French-style ban on women wearing burqas is unlikely to be replicated in the UK, because, he said, the idea was “unBritish” and “undesirable”.

The immigration minister, Damian Green, said banning Muslim women from covering their faces in public would be at odds with the UK’s “tolerant and mutually respectful society”.

The move to ban the burqa was backed by France’s lower house last week. With public support, it is expected to pass through the upper house in September. The law will fine women who continue wearing the face covering €150 (£117). Men who make women wear the cover will be given a one-year prison sentence or £25,000 fine.

Philip Hollobone, Conservative MP for Kettering, has tabled a private member’s bill calling for parliament to act similarly, saying he personally will not meet women wearing either the burqa or niqab but instead will ask them to “communicate with him differently” by sending a letter.

But Green told the Sunday Telegraph: “I stand personally on the feeling that telling people what they can and can’t wear, if they’re just walking down the street, is a rather un-British thing to do. We’re a tolerant and mutually respectful society.

“There are times, clearly, when you’ve got to be able to identify yourself, and people have got to be able to see your face, but I think it’s very unlikely and it would be undesirable for the British parliament to try and pass a law dictating what people wore.”

He said he thought the numbers of women in France wearing the burqa were limited. He added: “They [the French parliament] are doing it for demonstration effects. The French political culture is very different. They are an aggressively secular state. They can ban the burqa, they ban crucifixes in schools and things like that. We have schools run explicitly by religions. I think there’s absolutely no read-across to immigration policy from what the French are doing about the burqa.”

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The Department for Transport has delayed plans to bring in hand searches at UK airport security because of concerns from a Sikh group.

Sikhs are concerned it could mean hand checks of turbans or demands for the religious headwear to be removed.

The changes have already been implemented across the EU.

But a DfT spokesman said: “We have written to airports to advise them to continue using the previous methods of screening religious headwear.”

She added: “These methods do not require all headgear to be touched.

“We will then work with the airport industry and religious communities to find an acceptable long-term solution to this issue.”

At present, passengers walk through metal detectors at UK airports and, if the alarm goes off, they are then searched again with handheld metal detectors.

The new EU rules instead tell security staff to use their hands for the second checks.

Sikhs believe the prospect of having their turbans checked by hand or removed in public is degrading.

The Sikh Federation is worried that the new EU security rules will mean more embarrassment and upset at airports.

“It is disrespectful for anyone else to touch the turban other than the individual (wearer) themselves,” said Dabinderjit Singh of the Sikh Federation.

“It is almost a humiliation. It is very difficult to describe when someone touches your turban. Sikhs regard it as a crown. The reports that we’ve had from France and Italy in the last few weeks is that Sikhs are being asked to remove their turbans, that’s the equivalent of having a strip search but having it in public.”

Wearing a turban is protected by British law. This follows a landmark ruling by the House of Lords in 1983 in a case in which a Birmingham teenager was refused entry to a school because of his turban.

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