Migration Statistics

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this debate, Mr Walker. The Public Administration Committee report on migration statistics was published before I was appointed by the House to be a member of that Committee, but it is, none the less, excellent. It is a testament to the fine leadership of the Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), and to the hard work of current and previous Committee members.

The Committee is tasked with scrutinising good government across all Departments. Many people would argue that after the defence of the realm, the Government’s most important role is to protect and uphold the rights and interests of the citizens of the United Kingdom. In order to do so, they need to know with a high degree of accuracy exactly whose rights and interests they must protect and uphold. That information is necessary to ensure that public services can be properly planned and to enable the Office for National Statistics to produce statistics in which the public and the House can have confidence.

It is absolutely clear that the citizens whose rights and interests the Government should protect are interested in who is in our country, why they are here, what they are doing and when they leave. In order for the Government to fulfil their duties to UK citizens, plan public services, produce accurate statistics and address the legitimate concerns of the people, they must do all they can to ensure that migration statistics are accurate, up to date and fit for purpose.

On the Isle of Wight, UKSA usually refers to the UK Sailing Academy, but it also stands for the UK Statistics Authority. Despite the excellent work of the former organisation on the island, I am speaking today of the latter institution. In 2009, the UKSA said:

“Both users and ONS’ statisticians generally agree that migration statistics are not fit for all of the purposes for which they are currently used and require further improvement.”

Between 2008 and 2012, some improvements were made in the statistical data, which the Public Administration Committee welcomed. Those improvements were not enough, however, to earn the wholehearted support of the Royal Statistical Society, the British Society for Population Studies or the Royal Geographical Society, although the latter body conceded that the ONS is doing a good job with poor data. The international passenger survey, which is used as the primary source for those statistics, was never intended for that purpose, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex has said. It is hardly surprising that the survey was not up to a job for which it was never designed, so more needs to be done.

The original recommendation from the Committee was that e-Borders data, due to be fully operational this year, should also be fed into the statistics. That was superseded by the news in March that Labour’s over-ambitious and badly implemented e-Borders scheme had to be scrapped. However, I welcome the Government’s commitment to make much more of the information from the border systems programme available to the ONS to help improve the statistics.

[Keith Vaz]

The e-Borders scheme is a particular concern of the Home Affairs Committee. Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that we still do not know why the agreement made between the previous Government and the company that was undertaking e-Borders went wrong? That is still the subject of litigation. When we have massive procurement, as we had with e-Borders, it is extremely important that we know what went wrong before we procure for the future.

[Mr Turner]

That is absolutely right, and I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for pointing it out.

I also welcome the Government’s acceptance of the Public Administration Committee’s recommendation to use data held by other countries. The Government are hamstrung by EU free movement legislation, which prevents their gathering information on why people from EU countries are coming to the UK and how long they intend to stay.

[Mr Nigel Evans]

Is my hon. Friend aware that the normal price for a visa is £83, but for people staying a year or more the price is £300? That is a substantial sum. Surely some of that visa money should be allocated to ensuring that we have proper software and data collection systems in place. I do not apologise for going back to make certain that people are welcomed when they come into the United Kingdom via our airports. We want to ensure that people, particularly tourists, are not kept unduly in long queues while we collect the data that are necessary for us to have accurate information.

[Mr Turner]

We should be able to collect the data rapidly, as we all recognise. I agree entirely with my hon. Friend.

I know that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is considering what can be done. In the meantime, I urge the Minister to make all possible information available to the ONS to help it improve its statistical analysis of migration figures. I ask him to keep in mind possible sources of information that might help the ONS and make those sources of information available, and to do so even when he is not being held directly to account by the Public Administration Committee, the Home Affairs Committee, the whole House or even those who sit in another place. I hope he is able to assure me that he will do so.

People across the UK, whatever their political persuasion, welcome the Government’s aim to cut immigration. In 2003, I made it clear that growing immigration levels would have an effect on the already overstretched jobs market, as well as on the public services to which immigrants would become entitled. My right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) and the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) echoed my statement. There is huge demand for housing in our cities and larger towns, with consequent movement into more rural towns, which was called “white flight.” My statement followed the admission of the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), that he “hadn’t a clue” about the number of illegal immigrants in the UK.

Even some of those on the Opposition Benches now decry Labour’s disastrous policy of opening this country’s doors to all comers—a policy with no mandate, implemented in secret. Andrew Neather, a former Government adviser, suggested that Labour’s policy was

“to rub the Right’s nose in diversity.”

Labour conducted its affairs privately so that, by encouraging mass migration, it would not alienate its core working-class vote. Such actions are neither acceptable nor beneficial to the country in any way.

The Labour Government brought two and a half cities the size of Birmingham—a total of almost 3 million people—to this country without breathing a word. There is little doubt that we have made significant progress in putting better controls in place and repairing some of the damage, but we need accurate statistics that demonstrate that our policies are working. So as well as knowing who is coming in, we need to know who is leaving. I hope the Home Secretary’s expectation that full exit checks will be in place by next year is met.

I will draw my remarks to a close by saying that I understand how difficult a job my hon. Friend the Minister and his Conservative predecessors have had. They inherited a right old muddle, and sorting it out was never going to be easy or quick, but if people are to have confidence in migration statistics, those statistics need to chime with the reality of people’s day-to-day experiences. At present, the statistics simply do not do that, so I particularly welcome the Government’s sensible and positive response to the Committee’s recommendations on communicating the statistics to the public better. These are complex issues, but improvements in communicating the data will help the public to understand them better and lead to more informed debate, which is something we will all welcome.

--- Later in debate ---

[Adam Afriyie]

That is absolutely right. Clear, accurate and granular information, data and statistics will enable groups with a view on each category of immigration to take a reasoned view.

I often think that politicians’ use of statistics—I confess that this may include me in my early days—is like a drunk’s leaning on a lamp post, less for illumination and more for support. I do not mean to criticise the ONS or even the passenger survey, which is doing what it is told to do in the best way it can, but the danger of the Government’s or any politician’s leaning on the immigration data and statistics is that they are weak and will just fall over. Yet the public animosity and disharmony that can be created by the misuse or misrepresentation of the data are all too well known.

[Mr Andrew Turner]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the £2 million, which my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex said the Government are not willing to spend, is a tiny amount when it is considered that the same sum is proposed to be spent on a quarter of a mile of A road in my constituency? Why cannot the Home Office find the £2 million?

[Adam Afriyie]

The Home Office is doing difficult work in difficult circumstances of coalition. I agree with my hon. Friend. It would seem that spending £1 million or £2 million—or even £5 million or £10 million —to deal with such a vital issue at the heart of a current national debate, which could unsettle an entire nation, is a small sum, if that is what is required to put this matter right.

I suspect that only small sums and adaptations in how we use existing data and how we conduct the passenger surveys would be needed, and that those would assist enormously, in addition to the exit checks.

If we are to plan our public services, we need to have a good idea about what the immigration statistics and data are. It is interesting that the ONS said that the data at the moment

“should not be used as a proxy for flows of foreign migrants into the UK”.

The Oxford Migration Observatory stated:

“sampling errors are too large to measure with a reasonable degree of accuracy the number of migrants to a single region”

within

“the UK, or from a single country of origin”.

Yet if we listen to the public debate, including in my constituency, assumptions are already being made about particular areas and the effect of immigration. I have to admit that sometimes assumptions are presented by Departments, senior politicians and political leaders on the level of Romanian and Bulgarian immigration, for example, although the data just are not there to justify the statements.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) made it clear on “Newsnight” a few weeks ago that, when looking at current data collection, a handful of Romanians or Bulgarians—four, five or six—making a certain statement could lead to a difference of 4,000 in our estimate of the number of Romanians or Bulgarians coming into the country. It is clear that the data are currently insufficient to draw conclusions or create policies from.

The current data are vague and self-selecting. People who go to another country wanting to stay there, knowing that there were no exit checks and that they could probably get away with it—not that I would do this—would, if they were desperate, answer appropriately to a question in a passenger survey about how long they intended to stay, to ensure that it looked okay. There is a lot of self-selection in who answers the survey and there will clearly be, if we are all reasonable human beings, an understanding that people will answer questions to serve their purpose, although I would hope that everyone is honest.

Although we want to get immigration levels down to tens of thousands, rather than hundreds of thousands, with the data and statistics that have been available for the past four years our current estimates could be 200,000 or 250,000, one way or the other: these numbers are enormous and the statistical significance of the data really needs to be examined and reined in as soon as possible.