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12-03-2016 12:39 PM
The true scale of immigration to Britain by EU citizens is being kept secret by Government officials, it emerged last night.
Top civil servants, led by HMRC boss Lin Homer, are refusing to publish figures that could reveal up to 1.3million extra migrants living in the UK. If revealed, the data could have an explosive impact on the EU debate.
Requests to get to the truth have been thwarted for more than three months, with time now running out before the June 23 vote
Office for National Statistics figures show some 904,000 EU migrants have arrived in Britain since June 2010 – but in the same time, officials issued 2.2million national insurance numbers to EU migrants. The ONS yesterday admitted the numbers do not appear to add up.
HM Revenue and Customs admits holding the information, but has been refusing to answer Freedom of Information requests and Parliamentary questions on the matter.
Officially, 257,000 EU nationals were said to have arrived last year, but 630,000 from the EU were given NI numbers. This includes 209,000 NI numbers given to Romanians and Bulgarians, despite only 55,000 officially settling here last year.
The first request for the data was made by economist and former government advisor Jonathan Portes in November. The Government rejected the request in mid-December, saying that releasing the information would be 'unhelpful' to Mr Cameron's renegotiations.
Mr Portes appealed, but last month the Government again refused – this time claiming it would be too expensive.
So much for honesty and integrity.
