In the current furore over migration, you'd think everyone involved would tread carefully when it came to numbers. As is now very clear, keeping track of the movement of people into, out of and around the UK is complex, challenging and highly politically charged.
So it's a surprise when otherwise thoughtful people start bandying about emotive, and wrong, headline figures. In one recent radio report, a highly-respected journalist mentioned, several times, the figure of 500,000 as the level of people coming into, and staying in, the UK each year.
Even though we may not have entirely reliable figures for migration, this figure is wrong: the most accurate forecast we have at the moment suggests a figure closer to half this.
There are many valid points being made about migration numbers, chiefly about how central bodies such as the Office for National Statistics could make their figures more accurate by liaising more closely with local authorities, who are much more closely in touch with how much children are on school rolls, for example. And the ONS is working hard to improve the way it counts people. It is one of the surprises of the current discussion, perhaps, that there is no one, single, comprehensive way to count people arriving, leaving and working in the UK.
This work has been underway for some time and is already starting to bear fruit. In the meantime, stating, almost wilfully, incorrect figures does not help. Loose talk may not cost lives, but when it comes to migration, it certainly adds unnecessary fuel to an already highly inflamed debate.
