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'Disney World can keep better track of its visitors than Britain': Immigration policy attacked after report reveals figures rely on counting just 12 people a day

Councillor Philippa Roe from Westminster City Council told the Government: �Disney World has better technology to keep track of its visitors'
Officials rely on a sample of just under 5,000 migrants interviewed each year as they travel through UK air and sea ports

By Martin Beckford

PUBLISHED: 01:55, 28 July 2013 | UPDATED: 08:37, 28 July 2013

Britain is less able to keep track of its visitors than Disney World, it was claimed last night, as a scathing report exposed the failings of official immigration statistics.

Crucial estimates of arrivals from overseas rely on random interviews carried out with just 12 people passing through ports and airports each day � and even they may be lying, MPs said.

Ministers were warned they should not base their controversial immigration target � to limit population growth to the tens of thousands every year � on such shaky figures.
Queues at the U.K. Immigration border control centre at Heathrow's Terminal 5

Failings: The risk of error in the random interviewing system is so great that annual migration could be 35,000 higher or lower than is estimated

The Public Administration Select Committee urged the Home Office to combine its visa figures with forthcoming electronic data on visitors to build up a far more accurate picture of foreigner numbers.

Committee chairman Bernard Jenkin said: �Most people would be astonished to learn that there is no attempt to count people as they enter or leave the UK.

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�They are amazed when they are told that the Government merely estimates that there are half-a-million immigrants coming into the UK each year.�

Philippa Roe, leader of Westminster City Council, said: �When I gave evidence to this committee I said Disney World has better technology to keep track of its visitors than we do. I�m pleased this report accepts the current system is a blunt instrument which is patently not up to the job.�

The Coalition vowed to cut net migration � the number of new arrivals each year minus those who leave the country � from more than 150,000 a year to the �tens of thousands� by granting fewer visas to foreign students and making it harder for families to settle here.
Councillor Philippa Roe

Unimpressed: Councillor Philippa Roe said 'Disney World has better technology'

But today�s report reveals that the policy and the figures are not based on methodically counting everyone who arrives in the country or leaves it. Instead, officials rely on a sample of just under 5,000 migrants interviewed each year as they travel through UK air and sea ports, in what is known as the International Passenger Survey.

The risk of error in this poll is so great that annual net migration could be 35,000 higher or lower than is estimated.

Some advisers believe that, as a result, the Government should aim to reduce net migration to 50,000 rather than 100,000 in order to achieve its goal.

But the committee warned: �The Government should not base its target level of net migration on such an uncertain statistic as doing so could lead to inappropriate immigration policy.�

The passenger survey also relies on immigrants telling the truth about where they have come from and where they plan to settle.

A new system called e-Borders will record more detail on the identity of passengers travelling through British ports. But it will not be integrated into immigration statistics until 2018.

The Home Office counts the number of visas issued and asylum applications granted or received � but not people leaving unless they have broken the rules. The committee urged Ministers to integrate visa figures with port data �as rapidly as possible�.

Last night a Home Office spokesman said: �We disagree with the report�s conclusions. Government reforms on immigration are working and the statistics show that migration is at its lowest level for a decade.�
Cooper attacked for her silence on 'nasty' posters
Oddly quiet: Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper

Yvette Cooper has been criticised by Labour MPs for refusing to condemn a controversial new poster campaign telling illegal immigrants to �go home�.

Ethnic minority MPs in the party say Ms Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, was asked to speak out but declined.

They said it was �embarrassing� that attacks on the campaign were then led by UKIP�s Nigel Farage, who described the posters as �nasty and unpleasant�.

Labour MPs also accused Ms Cooper, below, of making a �misguided� attempt to �pander to the Right�.

The giant billboards, which are being driven around on the back of vans, say: �In the UK illegally? Go home or face arrest.� Illegal immigrants are offered a number to text for �free advice and help with travel documents�.

Reaction from the Liberal Democrats, backbench Labour MPs and UKIP was swift and critical. But Ms Cooper remained quiet.

One Labour MP said last night: �We hoped she would come out strongly against this nasty campaign, but she didn�t want to.

�It is ridiculous if we are so worried about alienating Right-wing voters that we end up being outflanked on the Left by Farage, the most Right-wing party leader, in a misguided attempt to pander to his supporters.�

Liberal Democrat president Tim Farron condemned the billboards as the �politics of division�. And Mr Farage, who campaigns on an anti-immigration ticket, said: �I think the tone of the billboards is nasty, unpleasant, Big Brother.�

A Labour spokesman insisted that one of Ms Cooper�s frontbench team had criticised the poster campaig

Having just traveled around East Anglia and the south of england I have to say there are thousands of Polish and foreign vans on the roads and i can bet they dont have tax or insurance either as no one will ask.
This can all be cleaned up in a matter of months, get out of the EU and then get the police and the army to do their job to track them all down and deport them, we are an Island, once the gates are shut they are trapped.
All those aiding these people should be sent to special hard labour prisons and all their assets taken away and if of an ethic minority, be deported along with their family and relations.
It is time to reclaim our country from this invasion of foreigners who have no right to be here and what makes it worse is that we are paying for them with our taxes, homes, jobs and hospitals,
WHEN INJUSTICE BECOMES LAW REVOLUTION BECOMES YOUR DUTY