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Migrant Workers: Romanians and Bulgarians

Answer

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the authority to reply. Letter from Stephen Penneck, Director General for ONS, to Lord Laird, dated May 2012. As Director General for the Office for National Statistics, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Wallace of Saltaire on 28 March (WA 272-3), whether they have used the International Passenger Survey (IPS) figure of 27,000 Romanians migrating to the United Kingdom between 1 January 2007 and 31 December 2010 to calculate overall Long-Term International Migration (LTIM) figures for that country: and what assessment they have made of whether the Office for National Statistics Annual Population Survey figure of an increase in the Romanian-born population in the United Kingdom from 23,000 to 87,000 between 2007 and 2010 is a more effective measure than the IPS for the purpose of the calculation of LTIM (16940). ONS uses the International Passenger Survey (IPS) data to estimate Long-Term International Migration (LTIM), with adjustments made for asylum seekers, people whose intentions change with regards to their length of stay, and migration to and from Northern Ireland. LTIM estimates adhere to the UN definition of a long-term international migrant, which states that a long-term migrant is a person who changes his or her country of usual residence for a period of at least a year According to the IPS, the net flow of long-term migrants from Romania between the year ending December 2007 and the year ending December 2010 was 23,000. ONS have made an assessment of the different sources of data on international migration and published a report, available at the following link: http.//www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/migrationl/population-by-country-of-birth-and-nationality/sources-of-international-migration-data/differences-between-sources-of-international-migration-data.pdf. This research focused on the Labour Force Survey, Annual Population Survey (APS), International Passenger Survey and Long-Term International Migration, and highlighted that there were key definitional and coverage differences between the sources, which meant that data derived from these different sources are not directly comparable. For example, the APS is a stock estimate of UK residents that includes both short- and long-term migrants, whereas the IPS separately identifies the net flows of long-term migrants. ONS concluded that the IPS is currently the most appropriate source for the calculation of long-term international migration based on the UN definition of a long-term migrant.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

16940; 736 c459-60WA

Session

2010-12

Related items

Migrant Workers: Romanians and Bulgarians
Wednesday, 28 March 2012
Written questions
House of Lords

Migrant Workers: Romanians and Bulgarians
Monday, 11 June 2012
Written questions
House of Lords

Subjects

Immigration Migration Statistics Romania

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk