Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Lord Stewart of Dirleton and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Report stage
Tuesday 8th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their amendments and their participation in this debate. I note that their interest lies in ensuring that the Secretary of State publishes regular data on a range of areas on immigration. I acknowledge the importance which my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe attaches to statistics, and I acknowledge the important work which the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, has carried out over many years, which serves to inform debates not only in the public sphere but in this place.

I assure the House that the Home Office provides a wide range of immigration data on a regular basis and has done for many years. This includes information on many parts of the immigration system, including the asylum and resettlement systems, returns and detention, and other areas such as visas and citizenship. All this demonstrates our commitment to ensuring that the public have the information they need to understand migration trends, and that the approach to small boat arrivals is in line with these other statistics on the immigration system.

The Home Office reviews the statistics that it publishes as a department, in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics. Where it is clearly in the public interest to do so, it will publish new statistics and amend existing statistics to ensure they continue to provide transparency around key government policies. However, we must weigh up the need for more statistics against other considerations. This includes the practicalities and costs of producing resilient, assured data derived from operational systems, presenting that data in such a way as to enhance the public’s understanding of key issues, and putting the data into appropriate context, as well as recognising the need to prioritise the department’s resources.

Amendment 80 would require reviewing and updating the International Passenger Survey by the Office for National Statistics. I emphasise that the ONS is a statistical agency, which is independent of government, and whose work is overseen by the UK Statistics Authority. While the Home Office publishes statistics in relation to the operation of the immigration system, the ONS is responsible for the national migration and population estimates. It would be inappropriate, I submit, for politicians to interfere with or seek to direct the National Statistician in his statistical duties.

My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe and the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, referred to the International Passenger Survey, as did my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbots. Prior to April 2020, the Office for National Statistics used this to measure migration but it is important to note that, as your Lordships have heard, it is no longer used for that. While the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, calls in effect for the reinstatement of the IPS, I have to advise the House that it was the ONS that concluded that the IPS had failed to meet changing user needs. It did not tell us what we needed to know about migrant patterns or give us enough detail to get a robust understanding of migration. I happily adopt the useful points made in this regard by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick.

As acknowledged by the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, the IPS was paused during the pandemic. The Office for National Statistics is instead working on producing statistics that will tell us more about migrant patterns. This is a work in progress but it should better meet the needs of policymakers. It is experimental statistical work, and we do not yet know whether it will provide robust answers, but the Home Office is committed to supporting ONS statisticians in exploring every avenue. We need to ensure, as I think the House agrees, that we have a clear understanding of such issues and their implications for the data before we publish anything or we risk doing precisely what the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, said we risked: misleading the public and undermining faith in statistics, rather than enhancing the public’s understanding of such important matters.

In relation to Amendment 81, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, from the Opposition Front Bench and others have pressed us on the alteration or the presentation of small boat statistics. Following advice from the independent UK Statistics Authority on making sure statistics on small boat crossings are published in an orderly way, the Home Office published a new statistics report on irregular migration to the United Kingdom. The report, which includes statistics on those arriving across the channel in small boats, was published for the first time on 24 February, covering data up to December 2021. We will update on a quarterly basis.

The decision to publish small boats figures in a quarterly report ensures regular statistics are released in an orderly, transparent way that is accessible to everyone, meeting the principles set out in the code of practice for statistics. The approach has been particularly important in allowing us to present small boats data in the wider context of longer-term trends, other methods of irregular entry and the immigration system more widely, and hence to provide statistics on a more sound basis. Where it is clearly in the public interest to have more frequent releases of information, we will consider this, as we have done with the EU settlement scheme, on which we publish statistics monthly.

In the case of small boats, publishing frequent updates will not provide sufficient time to collate the data collected in the field by operational staff and integrate that with the information from the asylum applications. Nor will it allow us to perform the robust assurance processes we undertake for our wider published statistics. This increases the risk of incomplete or incorrect data being put into the public domain.

The motivation for these changes is not to obfuscate or conceal. It is an attempt to provide more useful statistics —not to hide figures but to provide more assured data. Given that assurance, I ask the noble Lord and the noble Baronesses to withdraw their amendment.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for his comments, although I have to confess a sense of disappointment. Cutting resources and costs devoted to immigration data, whether by the ONS or the Home Office, may prove to be a false economy, and I am not convinced of the case for moving to quarterly reporting on small boats. It feels a little bit like hiding the story.

However, I am grateful to all noble Lords for their welcome support. I think we are all agreed on the need for accurate and reliable data on asylum and immigration, and on small boats and both directions of travel. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, we should respect the principle that sunlight is a powerful disinfectant. It should help to build trust but, for now, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 80.