By STEVE DOUGHTY Revised figures are to be produced in an attempt to get to grips with the scale of Britain's fast-growing population and the impact of immigration. The new count will rewrite the published estimates of the number in the country, currently said to be over 60million and rising by half a million a year. However it will not be made public until after the General Election. Overcrowding? Shoppers fill Oxford Street The decision to hold back the revised count was said yesterday by the Office for National Statistics to be unconnected to 'political considerations'. But critics of Labour's immigration policies said population is a major political concern and condemned the delay. Current estimates rely on the results of the disastrous 2001 census and the Government's International Passenger Survey. In 2006, the survey interviewed just 3,000 of 800,000 people thought to have moved into or out of Britain. New techniques include expanding the survey to more ports and airports. ONS officials say they intend to publish the revised numbers in May next year - the last possible date for the General Election. No controversial figures would be announced during an election campaign. A spokesman for the ONS said publication must be delayed until the figures have been thoroughly checked. She added: 'Political considerations did not influence the timing in any way.' But Sir Andrew Green of the Migrationwatch think tank said: 'There are shades of the last election when we heard the Prime Minister swear blind that estimates of illegal immigration were impossible, only to find the Home Office publishing just such an estimate a month later. 'Opinion polls have found that 80 per cent of the public do not believe that the Government has been honest about immigration. 'These results must be published before the election if there is to be an open and informed debate on this vital subject.'New count of soaring population to be kept under wraps
Last updated at 3:27 AM on 30th May 2009
Sunday, 31 May 2009
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