The Government has lost no time in responding to a report in the Daily Telegraph today, suggesting that up to one in 12 people living in London is here illegally. And the gist is, nothing to see here, folks. Move along. Or as a Home Office spokesman put it, “This report is deeply flawed. It is based on outdated and limited research, which was conducted under the previous government.”
Well, of course it’s flawed; some of the data goes back to 2017. And it is almost certainly an underestimate of the actual numbers of people here illegally. It is, however, the nearest we’ve come recently to putting a number on a phenomenon with a bearing on everything from community cohesion (code for people not liking it much when migrants settle here illegally), utilities (more people, more demand for water, sewage, gas et al) and social infrastructure (everyone, whatever their status, needs hospitals and schools).
