Tuesday, 4 May 2010


Press Releases


Now it’s the BBC that blunder over immigration statistics

May 1, 2010

On the 10 o’clock TV news on 30 April, the BBC "Reality Check" claimed that, in 2008, there was a net outflow of non EU workers of 8,000 so the real pressure on British jobs was from a net inflow of 46,000 EU workers which none of the parties had any plans to control. To do so Britain would have to leave the EU – a policy advocated only by UKIP and the BNP.

The real situation is that about 100,000 non EU workers arrived in that year (including an estimate for dependants). The available statistics do not reliably indicate how many left. The proportion of those arriving was almost double the BBC's figure. A full explanation can be seen at Briefing Paper 10.23.

Commenting, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman Migrationwatch UK, said :

“The BBC of all people should get their facts right on a subject as sensitive as immigration, especially when they describe their report as a “reality check”. It would have helped if they had paid more attention to immigration policy in the past.”

See Notes to Editors for links to relevant sources


Cost per head of an Amnesty about £½ Million Per Head Over a Lifetime

April 28, 2010

new report out today examines the cost of granting an amnesty to an illegal immigrant. The report, by think tank Migrationwatch, follows their estimate last week that there are about 1.1 million people living illegally in the UK. Many of them are working on the black market at less than the minimum wage.

The report examines the cost to the tax payer over the life time of an illegal immigrant who has been granted an amnesty and therefore full access to the welfare state at the age of 35. It assumes that obtaining legal status will, on average, allow the migrant to earn 50% more than the legal minimum wage.

For a single person the cost would be £220,000 rising to £660,000 if he or she were to be unemployed throughout.

For a family with two children and both parents working the cost would be £170,000. With only one spouse working the cost comes to £560,000 and, if they are both unemployed, the total adds up to just over £1 million.

Commenting, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman, Migrationwatch, said ‘At a time when the government have run out of money and our national debt is shooting up, it is crazy to suggest that these vast sums should be spent rewarding people who have been breaking our laws for many years and competing unfairly with British workers.’