Number of migrants ‘understated by 50,000 a year’

THE true scale of immigration to the UK was underestimated by at least 50,000 people a year from 2010 to 2015, suggests a new analysis.

Migration Watch UK, the campaign group, said that net migration could now be as high as 375,000 annually because more eastern Europeans have come to this country than previously thought.

The Office for National Statistics will next month publish the results of a review of figures on the eve of the EU referendum. It follows concerns that – according to official data – one million EU migrants came to Britain over the past five years, but in that same period more than 2.25 million registered for National Insurance numbers.

Migration Watch said that migration figures revealed an average of 40,000 eastern European migrants arrived between 2010 and 2015 every year. However, separate figures showed that the number of people in the UK who were born in eastern European countries rose by an annual average of 90,000. The figures indicate that for the first time net migration from the EU is greater than that from the rest of the world.

Last night peers called on MPs to allow a “specified” number of unaccompanied child refugees from Europe into the UK after the Commons rejected calls for 3,000 to be allowed in.

Monday night’s rejection by the Commons of the proposal prompted claims that the Government was turning its back on the most vulnerable.

But during the Commons debate, James Brokenshire, the Home Office minister, said the Government could not support a policy that would “inadvertently create a situation in which families see an advantage in sending children alone, ahead and in the hands of traffickers”.

At least 95,000 unaccompanied child refugees are estimated to have applied for asylum in Europe last year.