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The 300,000 foreigners who Labour forgot to count UK
Daily Mail Ministers were facing a new immigration crisis today after admitting that they have miscounted the number of foreign workers in the UK by more than 300,000. In an embarrassing retraction, Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain said that 1.1 million overseas nationals have gained jobs here since 1997 - and not the 800,000 he had previously claimed. The new total means that foreigners have taken more than 40 per cent of the 2.7 million jobs created since Labour came to power. The size of the error - which apparently occurred because officials failed to add in several columns of figures during a calculation - produced an angry reaction from both the Tories and the Lib-Dems. It will heighten the growing debate over immigration.
Today, Home Office minister Liam Byrne announced that restrictions will remain in force on Romanians and Bulgarians who want to work in Britain until "at least the end of 2008". The Conservatives, whose leader David Cameron yesterday promised a "substantial cut" in immigration, said the blunder was "profoundly worrying" and accused the Government of losing control of Britain's borders. The Liberal Democrats also questioned how the public could have any confidence when ministers could not get the "basic facts right". The error follows earlier wildly inaccurate official predictions that only 13,000 migrants a year would come from Poland and other new EU members from 2004, instead of the 683,000 who have so far arrived. It also comes only a week after Government statisticians warned that the population of Britain will rise by more than 10 million by 2031 - four million higher than the previous official figure published only two years earlier. The latest blunder emerged in a letter sent by Mr Hain to his Tory shadow Chris Grayling in which the minister apologised that incorrect figures had been given in response to questions in the House of Commons. Mr Hain wrote: "It was stated that the increase in the number of foreign nationals in employment since 1997 was 0.8 million. Following further careful analysis of the information in the Labour Force Survey, this figure has been revised upwards by 0.3 million. "This revised analysis shows that there are, in total, an extra 1.1 million foreign nationals in employment in the UK since 1997. I apologise for having to make this revision." Mr Hain said the new figure was the most "robust estimate available", but Mr Grayling said the admission was "an extraordinary development" which highlighted the Government's lack of control over immigration policy. He said: "The fact that the Government did not know the true number of overseas workers who have come to the UK in the past 10 years is profoundly worrying, and confirms fears that ministers have simply lost control of our systems for migrant workers. "It really does call into question the competence of ministers and of the Government as a whole." Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesman Danny Alexander said: "Britain has benefited enormously from the labour of foreign national workers and, if we are to continue to benefit, the public must have confidence in the system. Getting the basic facts rights is essential to that task." In an attempt to deflect criticism, ministers have begun emphasising their plans to introduce a new "points based" system for immigration next year, which will give priority to workers with higher skills or who could fill particular gaps in the UK labour market. The new system, which also covers students, does not, however, include EU nationals, who are responsible for much recent immigration, or the much smaller numbers of asylum seekers. It is also unclear how much ministers will be able to restrict the flow of dependants arriving in the UK, currently another large source of immigration. The Conservatives claim that they can address such problems by setting an annual cap on migration, although again this will not include arrivals from within the EU. Today's figures on foreign workers, which show that they now account for eight per cent of the 29.1 million working population of the UK, will also heighten the pressure on Gordon Brown over his recent pledge to provide "British jobs for British workers". The statistics show that of the 1.1 million foreign national workers, EU nationals made up just under half the total. The remainder come from non-EU and Commonwealth countries, including the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. At the same time, unemployment and the wider definition of "economic inactivity", which includes those on incapacity benefit or otherwise not seeking work, remains stubbornly high among existing British workers. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith today said she was "sorry" about the botched figures. She told BBC Breakfast it was "bad" that the statistics had been incorrect. She said: "Of course it is bad that these figures are wrong and ministers have apologised for that, I am sorry about that. But the important point is that actually there are 2.7 million more jobs in this country than there were in 1997. "That is more jobs, yes, that have been filled by those who have come from abroad, but many more jobs that have been filled by UK nationals and vacancies still out there for UK nationals."
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