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London Population (ONS)

They certainly are. My hon. Friend makes a valid point. It is not good enough for the Government to say, for example, that migrants frequently move on quickly. That is not demonstrated by the evidence on the ground and nor does it deal with the point that, for a period, migrants live in London, which is often the first port of call. While they are there, they are using London services, and that has to be met in one way or another. It is fair to say that those shortfalls are recognised by other responsible bodies, not just by the London boroughs. I remind the Exchequer Secretary of a piece in The Guardian in April, in which the Home Office Minister responsible for immigration said that"““at the very least the Office for National Statistics needs to improve its figures on which key local financing decisions are based, but it also means the tough enforcement of immigration laws, including the prosecution of employers of illegal migrants.””" That is an acceptance by one of the Exchequer Secretary’s colleagues in Government that the ONS needs to improve its act. Referring to the current method of calculating in-migration, which is based on the international passenger survey—a small sample survey of people arriving—the Governor of the Bank of England said last November:"““A survey that was designed to learn more about tourism and business travel is not the best source of data from which to learn about migration.””" That is a pretty unanswerable point. Lord Bruce-Lockhart, the chairman of the Local Government Association has said:"““It is essential that the government gets the figures right on migration. That is currently not happening and local authorities are suffering as a consequence. Councils are finding it difficult to provide services to growing populations that are not recognised by government statistics.””" The Mayor of London and the London assembly have both complained about the inadequacy of the figures going back to the 2001 census. The Mayor has commented on the fact that the Lisson Grove estate, which contributed substantially to his majority when he was a Member of this House, seemed to have disappeared from the census calculations. It is not often that I agree with the Mayor of London, and I could not agree with him on that one.