Madeleine Sumption

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The Level of migration from the EU in the UK was underestimated by The Office for National statistics from the mid-2000s to 2016.

The ONS said the error affected The Number of migrants from the eight countries That joined the EU in 2004, including Poland.

he said, It can also countries, migration is exaggerated from non-EU.

As a result, has compiled figures of the status of immigration, the ONS downgraded to "Experimental ".

immigration expert at the University of Oxford, said the latest ONS analysis showed official data was "systematically net migration from EU countries underestimated".

The results showed That in 2015-16, EU-migration - to arrive, the difference between the people, and leave - was 16% higher (29,000) than initially assumed.

This means an increase in the estimate of the EU-migration from 178,000 to 207,000 for the year to the end of March 2016.

net migration from outside the EU 13% (25,000) is lower, because more foreign students than was previously assumed.

What is the government, the migration policy?

was introduced, The Target of cutting net migration to less than 100,000 per year, by the then Prime Minister, David Cameron .

He continued his promise in the Conservative Manifesto, in the 2017 election, with Theresa May 's net migration want to bring down to the "tens of thousands".

But the government never came close to meeting The Goal , and in the face of repeated calls to drop it.

If proposals for a new immigration system were published, The Goal of 100,000 inhabitants, was abandoned.

the unveiling of the new rules, Sajid Javid - who was then interior Minister - said it was not a "specific target" to reduce the numbers coming to the United Kingdom, which would net come migration to "sustainable levels".

How are the immigration statistics?

In The Heart of the ONS' migration-updates - appearing every three months - is The International passenger survey.

The survey was launched to assist in the in 1961, the government, to better understand how travel and tourism impacts on the economy.

But later, and after Cameron had set a net migration target of the survey was a useful method to gauge who was coming and going for wider political purposes.

For 362 days of the year, IPS personnel approach passengers at 19 airports, eight ports and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link .

ask them where they come from, why you are in the UK and how long you could live to be.

Each year, they survey 800,000 people. Around 250,000 of these results will be used to provide an estimate for the people arriving To Live in the UK or Leaving the UK for at least a year.

But the IPS is not for all of the ports work all the time, and the sample is just over 1% of the Heathrow annual traffic volume of over 78 million people.

The System has the criticism, with two parliamentary committees conclusion of The International passenger survey is now next to useless on its own, for government purposes.

Why the ONS error no matter?

Madeleine Sumption , Director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said That the monitoring of net migration-had shown figures, "for a while, That something is not quite right".

you said: "This is important, because for the last nine years, the British political debate has not been fixed to bear on a single data source, which could be the Last, he was forced to.

"If the question is How To do The Net migration target, or what is on international students, The Truth is That the data were simply not robust enough to be picked up, except in such Details. "

The admission by the ONS - 24 hours before the current immigration statistics are published, the numbers have been wrong for over a decade, the pride in the accuracy and reliability. it is extremely embarrassing for a body,

adds It to grow the doubts of A Number of experts about the methods they used, while the decision to downgrade the status of his characters to "Experimental " - is it a kind of kite mark - raises serious questions about whether future immigration can statistics be trusted.

The regulatory authority says That there is "considerable uncertainty" about the estimates, as of 2016, the year of EU-referendum.

This is partly because EU citizens were interviewed in the United Kingdom, are for The Passenger survey, on which the figures are based may be unclear as to whether or not you stay in UK for at least 12 months, the cut-off point for the Integration of immigration data.

The ONS said That its research showed no single source of data "can fully reflect the complexity of the migration," but a look at all available sources "available, a much clearer picture".

"While we are added by this transformation journey, we have tried to classify the re-our migration statistics as "Experimental statistics", in accordance with the statistics regulation guidance," it is.

BBC home Affairs correspondent Dominic Casciani said the error in the methodology "largely cancel each other out".

In February of this year That The Net migration to the UK from countries outside the EU reached the highest level in 15 years.

in Front of ONS, an error is added: the statistics on net migration between 1997 and 2017

office for national statistics, uk immigration, immigration, migration

Source of news: bbc.com