The reason that the NI registrations imply so much more immigration than our official estimates show is largely because NI figures count more people in the first place, according to the ONS. Today’s publication is the first installment of that. In order to try and explain the gap, the ONS said it would publish an analysis this month. NI numbers are allocated to foreign nationals looking to work or claim benefits in the UK. Routine immigration estimates in February suggested around 257,000 nationals from other EU countries migrated to the UK in the year to September 2015.īut another set of figures showed that 655,000 National Insurance (NI) numbers had been issued to EU nationals over the same period. Earlier this year, there was controversy over whether our immigration estimates have been missing large numbers of immigrants from the rest of the EU, with some outlets accusing officials of a “ cover up”.
