Are there 800,000 more migrants in UK than we thought?

THE number of EU migrants in Britain may have been undercounted by 800,000, figures suggested last night.

There were 2.5million Europeans who had a tax record but only 1.7million accounted for in official statistics, according to fresh analysis.

The number of incomers apparently missing is more than the entire population of Tyneside.

It may indicate migration figures compiled by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have been undercounted for years.

HM Revenue & Customs finally revealed in a Freedom of Information answer that 2.54million EU-born citizens had been in employment in Britain in 2013–14 – the last year figures are available. But in the same year, the number of EU-born workers in the UK was just 1.75million, according to the ONS’s Labour Force Survey. It meant there was a huge discrepancy of 790,000.

Failure to control the country’s porous borders – in large part due to the controversial requirement to let in EU citizens – was the spur for millions of people to vote for Brexit.

Critics say soaring immigration has driven down wages in some low-skilled industries, such as agriculture and food processing, and kept British people out of jobs.

It also heaped pressure on public services, including schools and healthcare. The ONS said some of the gap was accounted for by the fact many of those with tax records – which meant HMRC had been notified they had been in work – were using them for less than 12 months before going home, so need not be counted.

But Jonathan Portes, the ex- Government adviser who fought a long battle for the release of the HMRC figures, said short-term migration only numbered about 250,000.

Mr Portes, research fellow at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, said he believed the ONS was still undercounting.

He said: ‘We are talking about a very large discrepancy. It seems implausible that the Labour Force Survey statistics are correct.

‘I think there clearly are more recent EU migrants present and active in the UK labour market than suggested by the official statistics.

‘The number of migrants born elsewhere in the EU resident in the UK may be significantly

higher than we think. The ONS, and the Government as a whole, need to look into this as a matter of urgency.’

Mr Portes said the gap could be because the ONS was less likely to count migrants in shared houses or that migrants were reluctant to take part in the survey.

All the migrants with tax records are legally in the UK.

Earlier this year, the ONS had to attempt to explain away a gap of 1.2million migrants in the workforce.

Official figures showed there were 1,000,400 ‘long-term’ migrants moving to the UK from the EU between 2011 and 2015, which means they stayed for more than a year.

But other figures for the same period show 2,234,000 National Insurance numbers were allocated to EU nationals – a gap of 1.2million. An ONS spokesman said: ‘HMRC figures look at the total number of people who have paid tax over a whole year. Many of these people may only have worked for a short period of time.

‘The LFS estimates the number of non-UK citizens working in the UK at a point in time. You would not expect the total number paying tax to equal the number in employment at any given point.’

Last week figures showed that net migration for EU citizens was estimated at 180,000 in the year to March – down on 184,000 the previous year.

There were 3.2million EU citizens living in Britain in 2015 – a figure which has almost tripled in just over a decade.