UK Parliament / Open data

Migration Statistics

Proceeding contribution from Keith Vaz (Labour) in the House of Commons on Thursday, 26 June 2014. It occurred during Adjournment debate on Migration Statistics.

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. This is about the public knowing—it is public money that has gone into this—and we need to know precisely what was going on. We also need to know why it has taken four years. The right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) was right to cancel the contract when he did, otherwise it would have drifted on, year after year. At the end of the day, however, we need to know what went wrong so that we do not do it again. For all we know, if we do not know what went wrong, this problem could happen again and again. It is vital that we get to the bottom of the problem of e-Borders.

I welcome this excellent report, which says some valuable things. The Home Affairs Committee continues, of course, to look at immigration and migration issues. As I said at the beginning of my speech, the best way to deal with the issue of migration and immigration is to have accurate statistics that everybody can sign up to. At the moment, we are conducting a debate without knowing the full facts.

2.18 pm

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
583 c141WH 
Session
2014-15
Chamber / Committee
Westminster Hall
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