A row erupted last night over the ‘huge discrepancy’ between official immigration statistics and the issuing of National Insurance numbers.
According to the Office for National Statistics, 55,000 Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants came to Britain in the year to last September. Of those, some 45,000 said they came to work.
However, an analysis of issues of National Insurance numbers – without which no one can work legally or claim benefits in the UK – paints an entirely different picture.
According to the Office of National Statistics, some 170,000 Romanian nationals applied for NI Numbers
A total of 630,000 NI numbers were given to EU citizens in 2015, of whom 209,000 were Romanians or Bulgarians
This compares with an overall official net EU migration total of 257,000 – a gap Lord Green of the Migration Watch UK think-tank described as ‘a huge discrepancy.’
He added: ‘It is hard to believe that as many Europeans as this are arriving to work and then staying for less than a year. It is possible but it does seem unlikely.’
In 2014 – the first year that citizens of the two countries which joined the EU in 2007 had the right to work freely in Britain – 187,000 NI numbers were issued to them.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3464917/NI-numbers-hint-migrant-total-far-higher-257-000-EU-immigrants-arrived-630-000-want-right-work.html#ixzz41Fas3b2phttp://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/647574/Net-migration-THREE-TIMES-predicted-blow-Cameron-EU-campaign-Brexit
