European Union Migration: National Insurance

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, obviously it is a two-way street but we are talking about net figures.

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

Can the Minister disentangle for us the impact on the figures of the huge number of annual visitors, whom we wish to encourage, and of overseas students coming to this country? We seem to be in a fog of numbers.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, the figures that we are concerned about and that the ONS survey takes into account cover all passengers who come into and go out of the country. But the main migration figures are based on UN definitions of people who are resident here for more than 12 months—so we do not count visitors in those figures.