Shock new figures reveal 800,000 more EU nationals are working here than appear in official statistics
Top academic Jonathan Portes is calling for an investigation to discover exactly how many EU nationals are in the UK
UP TO 800,000 more EU nationals have been working in Britain than the totals picked up in official job figures, tax chiefs have revealed.
A top academic today said the shock discrepancy suggested the number of migrants living in the UK “may be significantly higher than we think”.
Details buried in an HM Revenue & Customs update said the total number of Europeans with a ‘live’ tax record for 2013-2014 was a whopping 2.54 million – meaning they had a paid job.
This compares with just 1.75 million recorded in the official job statistics - the Labour Force Survey - for early 2014.
Jonathan Portes of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), demanded the Government and the Office of National Statistics launch an immediate investigation into what was going on.
He said the difference could not be simply explained away by saying the migrants were only here in the UK on a “short-term” basis.
He told the Sun: “These HMRC stats show that in 2014 there were 2.5 million EU nationals with a tax record – but the official ONS figures at the time showed only about 1.7 million in employment.
“Short-term migration and turnover in the labour market explains much of this – perhaps up to half a million.
“But even that still leaves a gap of at least 300,000.
“The ONS – and the Government as a whole – need to look at the reliability of the labour market and population statistics as a matter of urgency.”
The academic has been fighting a battle with HMRC and the Government for accurate figures on the number of migrants in the UK for nearly a year – claiming Ministers appeared to be keeping voters in the dark ahead of the Referendum.
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In May, HMRC explained a huge gap in immigration totals and the number of EU nationals registering for a National Insurance number by putting it down to short-term migration – people who spend less than a year in the UK.
But Mr Portes said the levels of short-term migration were “nowhere near enough” to explain the near 800,000 gap this time round.
Tory backbencher Philip Davies stormed: “Unfortunately this doesn’t come as a great surprise to be honest.
“I have always felt that the official figures are a gross under-estimate of what the reality was.
“This appears to confirm that.”
Official job figures two weeks ago put the number of EU-born nationals working in the UK at 2.3 million in June 2016.
The HMRC today refused to say when it would publish a live tax record for the past 12 months.
In a statement the Office for National Statistics said: “HMRC figures look at the total number of people who have paid tax over a whole year.
“Many of these people may only have worked for a short period of time.
“The Labour Force Survey estimates the number of non-UK citizens working in the UK at any point in time.
“You would not expect the total number paying tax to equal the number in employment at any given point.”
