Data on migration and crime is “full of holes” and is leaving the public and politicians in the dark about the true impact of immigration on the UK, an expert report has warned.
New research published by the influential Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford said the government does not know how many people are in the country unauthorised and has inadequate information about what happens to asylum seekers before or after they make their first claim.
There is also little data on the number of immigration cases that are affected by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), leaving public debate starved of vital information, academics warned.
Labour has pledged to try and change the way that the ECHR is interpreted by UK judges in a bid to stop asylum seekers using their rights to a family life to avoid deportation. Home Office officials have claimed that the ECHR is “allowing large numbers of people to stay in the UK, against the public’s wishes”.
But Dr Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory, said that current data cannot give the public a clear picture of when the ECHR is used in such cases.
She added: “This makes it harder for the public or policymakers to make an informed choice about an important decision with long-term repercussions for the UK”.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp accused Labour of “hiding the very data the public need to understand what is happening to our borders”.
He said the government was “refusing to publish key enforcement data and they avoid saying how many cases are affected by human rights law,” adding that ministers were “keeping the country in the dark because the truth would expose how weak and incompetent their approach really is”.
Meanwhile, Steve Smith, CEO of Care4Calais, warned that a vacuum of good information could be manipulated, saying: “The public debate on migration is full of politically motivated rhetoric, and almost entirely devoid of facts. It’s a dangerous situation that is undoubtedly inflaming hate and bolstering far-right actors.”
The data gaps highlighted by the Migration Observatory included statistics about migrants’ economic outcomes and how they change over time, a lack of information about the impact of migration on public services, and holes in data about immigration enforcement and returns.
They also said that there is no official data on the nationalities or immigration statuses of people arrested as suspects, prosecuted in criminal cases, or convicted of crimes. There is also little data on migrants as victims of crime, the research paper, published on Friday, said.
Last year, Conservative home secretary James Cleverly was accused of appearing to “have lost thousands of people” after officials admitted that 4,000 asylum seekers had lost contact with the Home Office. Around 85 per cent of the 5,000 people who have been identified for removal to Rwanda were ‘lost’, according to reports.
Almost 6,000 asylum seekers whose claims have been withdrawn had also gone missing, ministers admitted last year.
Dr Peter Walsh, senior researcher at the Migration Observatory, said: “These evidence gaps are particularly challenging when trying to track asylum seekers through the immigration system: official data can’t tell us much about what happens to asylum seekers who are refused but not returned, or what type and sequence of appeals some people make when told they must leave the UK.
“These are important questions, especially at a time when the government plans to reorganise the immigration and asylum appeals system”.
Mr Smith, from Care4Calais, added: “Under Labour, it feels even less transparent than it was under the Tories.” Mr Smith pointed to a regression on Freedom of Information Rights on the release of data and “mimicking anti-migration rhetoric” as degrading the standard of debate.
He added: “People should be concerned about this problem. Today the vacuum is being used to attack refugees, but tomorrow it could be used to attack the rights of everyone”.
A Home Office spokesperson said:“These findings are not acceptable, but they are a product of this government’s inheritance of a migration system that was out of control.
“We are now pursuing major reform to restore order and control at our border, and to ensure our migration system is fair for British citizens. Net migration to the United Kingdom is down by two-thirds under this Government, and the removal of illegal migrants is up 23% to nearly 50,000.”
