Immigration Statistics

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I agree that the public should have confidence in the statistics produced by the ONS, particularly on migration. These are an important input to policies on housing, health, education and other public services. The ONS will use powers in the Digital Economy Act, which has recently passed into legislation, to access data from other government departments. This will complement the information it already has from the IPS. By accessing not only exit data from the Home Office but information from HMRC, from the DfE on school rolls and from GPs on GP lists, it will be able to strengthen and enrich—the word it has used—the statistics on migration, and in turn this will enhance confidence. The Government do not make forecasts on migration but the ONS produces what it calls estimates.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

Is there any serious member of Her Majesty’s Government—with the possible exception of the Prime Minister—who does not believe that overseas students should not be included in immigration statistics? Is it not time that this change was made and a message of hope given to our universities?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord will recall that this issue was debated extensively by your Lordships when the then Higher Education and Research Bill went through this House. When the Bill left this House an amendment was carried to delete overseas students from the migration figures. When that legislation hit the statute book, that bit was omitted. In the meantime, the ONS will continue to follow the UN standard, which is to count anyone who is here for more than a year as a long-term migrant. That practice is followed by the USA, New Zealand, Canada and Australia. There is an impact on services if people stay here for longer than a year, and the ONS, which is independent, has decided to continue to use the United Nations definition.