A study issued today by
Migrationwatch UK has examined how the number of EU immigrants has
been undercounted by half a million over a ten year period – a difference the
size of Manchester. The mistake was
discovered by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) when they compared the
results of the recent census with the population that they had expected to find
on the basis of births, deaths and the official immigration figures.
This discovery means that net
foreign immigration between mid 1997 and mid 2010 now totals very nearly 4
million. Allowing for the 1 million
British citizens who emigrated in that period, net immigration comes to 3
million. That is its direct effect on
the population of the UK although it takes no account of illegal
immigration.
Amazingly, the ONS have refused
to revise the official immigration numbers for the period despite having
regularly done so in the past when much smaller errors were discovered.
The revised numbers would show
that net immigration reached a peak of 325,000 in 2005 – six times the level of
1997. By 2010 it had fallen to 260,000.
Commenting, Sir Andrew Green,
Chairman of Migrationwatch UK said “4 million immigrants in 13 years is an
astonishing figure – the highest in our history, including the Norman conquest
in 1066. This new information underlines the scale of the task faced by the
present government in getting the numbers down”.
Migrationwatch has called on
the Statistics Authority, the watchdog in these matters, to insist that the
official figures be revised. Said Sir
Andrew, “There is no point in burying bad news in obscure documents. That simply destroys trust. It is hard to think of set of statistics that
is more important to the public. For the
sake of public confidence in government statistics there must be a thorough
revision of the immigration statistics and the new figures must be published
without delay”.
Note to
Editors: Four million is the
equivalent of Birmingham (1,019,200), Leeds (779,300), Bristol (426,100), Manchester
(473,200), Edinburgh (471,700), Cardiff (330,500)
Belfast (268,300), and Newcastle (277,800)