Labour 'ignored' migrant warning

Jamie Doward
London Observer
Sunday November 4, 2007

The government failed to heed warnings from its own statistical experts for more than four years that the immigration figures were seriously flawed, The Observer can reveal.

The revelation comes after it emerged that estimates for the number of eastern European migrants coming to work here are based on interviews with fewer than 100 people travelling through Britain's airports and ports.

Migration experts say the sample size highlights serious flaws in the way migration statistics are calculated and suggests they may seriously underestimate the true number of people coming into the country to work both legally or on the black market.

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The Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank expressed concern last night that the flawed statistics - which last week prompted acrimonious exchanges between the Conservatives and the government over the true scale of inward migration - have shifted the immigration debate into the realms of xenophobia and blurred the arguments surrounding the contribution of foreign workers and the challenges they pose for local authorities.
The concerns come as it emerges that one council now calculates that as many as a million Poles could come to London in search of work in the next year.

Full article here.

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