My Lords, I support Amendment 80, which I have co-sponsored. The problem is that Covid has sent immigration statistics into a tailspin, to which the Government’s response has made matters worse. As I understand it, the Government suspended the International Passenger Survey that took place at all airports when Covid struck, mainly to protect the staff, who would normally have been interviewing people all day. That is fair enough. It was also the case that the number of international passengers fell through the floor, so it was not much of a guide to levels of immigration.
All this roughly coincided with efforts by the ONS to use existing statistical data to estimate migration flows. That effort has already run into trouble. In any case, it is by definition a year late because it relies on statistics that are looked at every 12 months.
The purpose of the amendment is in effect to call for the reinstatement of the International Passenger Survey, improved where possible, so as to have a clearer and more up-to-date indication of where we stand. I need hardly remind the Government that they promised to “take back control” of immigration. At present, they have very little idea of the present scale of immigration, and when they do find out they are likely to have an unpleasant surprise, with very little time to adjust their policy before the next election. That is their problem.
I will also speak briefly on Amendment 81, which concerns people crossing the channel. The Home Office has announced that it will publish the statistics on only a quarterly basis. I hope that is wrong and that the Minister will be able to say that it will be much more frequent than that.
There seems to have been a kind of fix between the Office for Statistics Regulation and the Home Office, whereby it was agreed that quarterly publication would ensure that the statistics were
“put into the longer term and wider immigration and asylum context and so better support the public debate and understanding”.
Well, “weasel words” does not describe it. What they are actually doing is insulting the public’s intelligence. If they go on with that policy, they are simply trying to keep the facts from the public on a matter of considerable public concern. So it is not surprising that a number of MPs have actually attacked this move, with one calling it an attempt to cover up failure while another said that it was “burying bad news”. I regret to say that that may very well be an accurate statement of the position. The Government clearly have a serious problem here, exacerbated by their previous promises, but they will have to deal with it, and deal with it honestly.