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<middle class irony>Not enough plummers</middle class irony>

UK immigrant numbers 'higher than thought'
(Filed: 19/05/2006)

A new Europe-wide survey has indicated that Britain's immigrant population could be as much as six times higher than the official figure.

European countries that have held amnesties for illegal immigrants have recorded up to six-fold increases in the official figures, according to a survey of non-national populations living in the EU member states.

The latest available official figures for the proportion of non-national residents in Britain is 4.7 per cent, a minimal increase compared with the figure for 1990 of 4.2 per cent.

Similar small increases - or even decreases - are shown in the same period in many other member states.

But the figures for Spain, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Cyprus, which have all staged amnesties enabling illegal immigrants to register without being turned away, show "significant" rises, according to the EU's statistical office.

The figures for the citizenship make-up of the 25 member states show a Spanish immigrant population of 6.6 per cent in 2004, the most recent year available. In 1990, that figure was just 1 per cent.

The registered immigrant population in Greece was put at 8.1 per cent of the total population in 2004, up from 1.4 per cent in 1990.

In Italy, 3.4 per cent of the population was made up of non-nationals in 2004, compared with a recorded 0.6 per cent in 1990.

In Portugal the proportion was 1 per cent in 1990, and 2.3 per cent in 2004.

Cyprus's recorded immigrant population more than doubled after its amnesty, from 4.2 per cent of the total population in 1990 to 9.4 per cent in 2004.

The report from Eurostat, the EU's Luxembourg-based statistical office, confirmed: "Regularisation programmes [amnesties] had a significant effect on the size of non-national populations in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain."

The biggest percentage of resident foreigners in any EU country is 38.6 per cent in Luxembourg, where the non-nationals, many working for EU institutions or big business, tend to be from other EU countries.