To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their projected forecast for the number of (1) refugees, and (2) asylum seekers they expect to accept in each of the next five years; and whether they expect those projected figures to change if the UK (a) does, and (b) does not, leave the EU.
Answered on
26 March 2019
Population projections, including for different migration scenarios, are the responsibility of the independent Office for National Statistics.
The Home Office does not publish the projections indicated. As indicated in the report for the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), Evaluation of existing migration forecasting methods and models, there are many social, economic and political drivers which can impact migration flows, making forecasting migration an extremely difficult task. Migration is susceptible to shock events which are, by their very nature, hard to predict, such as economic cycles, military conflict and policy changes. Therefore, the probability of a single forecast being correct is low.
Notwithstanding this, we remain on track to deliver our commitment of resettling up to 23,000 vulnerable refugees under our resettlement schemes by 2020 and are confident that the outcome of EU Exit will not impact our ability to achieve this.