Winston Churchill MP has just made a speech casting doubt on Home Office immigration statistics.

His essential point about the level of immigration to [Britain] being a great deal higher than admitted by the Home Office is entirely accurate.

For ten years I was head of the UK immi-gration service. I have long known that the Home Office statistics bear no relation at all to the true facts on immigration.

Instead of around 50,000 a year getting here on average, as the Home Office claims, the true figure works out at more than 100,000 per year.

The Home Office may like to assume that illegal immigrants dutifully queue up, buy an airline ticket home, and leave our shores the moment their permitted time here is over - but the assumption is untrue. Most simply remain in this country as de facto settlers, without being recorded as such. The Home Office cannot therefore continue to pretend that its figures are accurate.

The actual rate of immigration belies the official statistics, making Home Office policy severely flawed. There should be an open debate about the scale, and the long-term consequences, of immigration.

Excerpts from a column in

the Australian edition of

UK Mail (The International Daily Mail)

February 13-19, 1995