Reform UK's Malcolm Offord claimed one million people came to the UK in the 20th century, and seven million people have come to the UK since 2000. This is not accurate.
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Lord Offord's historical immigration claim is Mostly False
Reform UK's Malcolm Offord claimed one million people came to the UK in the 20th century, and seven million people have come to the UK since 2000. This is not accurate.
The latest politician to defect to Reform UK appeared on the BBC’s Question Time just days after he joined the party.
Lord Malcolm Offord, a Scottish peer who previously held ministerial positions for the Conservatives, was on the panel as the BBC debating show was broadcast from Paisley.
Much of the debate surrounded Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage, and his comments on immigration and culture in Scotland, with Lord Offord defending Farage’s remarks and arguing that the UK’s current level of immigration was unsustainable.
During his appearance, he made a claim about immigration numbers over the course of the last century.
“If you think about the whole of the 20th century, one million people came to the UK. So far, in the first 25 years of this century, seven million people have come to the UK” - Lord Offord of Garvel
Ferret Fact Service looked at this claim and found it Mostly False.
Evidence
The second part of Offord’s claim is that seven million people have come to the UK between 2000 and 2025.
UK census data in 2021-22 showed there were 10.7 million people living in the UK who were foreign-born. A more recent, but less reliable, figure from the Office for National Statistics indicated the non-UK-born population in England and Wales was about 11.4m in June 2023, while the Scottish census of 2022 found 554,900 people living here were born outside of the UK.
In 2001, the census revealed 4.9 million foreign-born people in the UK. That is an increase of 5.8 million in 20 years, and could be up to seven million difference using the less reliable, more recent figures.
However, Offord also claimed that only one million people came to the UK in the 20th century. This is harder to back up with evidence.
We have seen there were 4.9 million foreign-born people counted in the 2001 census data. This means it is extremely likely that the vast majority of these people came to the UK during the 20th century. In 1901, the foreign-born population of England and Wales was 475,000.
This suggests that likely at least four million people came to the UK from abroad during the 20th century. This does not mean that everyone who came stayed, and will include people who are no longer in the UK.
This is also backed up by historical yearly immigration figures. Data from the Office for National Statistics shows the annual inward migration to the UK. In 1970, there were 226,000 foreign migrants to the UK. A low of 153,000 was hit in 1981, but the number of immigrants never dipped below 150,000 per year between 1970 and 1999. In 1999 alone 454,000 immigrants came to the UK.
There have also been significant, well-documented inflows of migration to the UK throughout the 20th century. For example, census data shows about 600,000 people came to the UK between 1948 and 1973 from Commonwealth countries, many as part of the ‘Windrush generation’ from the Caribbean encouraged to come to post-war Britain.
Ferret Fact Service verdict: Mostly False
The figures used by Lord Offord don’t appear to be backed up by the evidence. His claim that one million people came to the UK in the 20th century is not supported by the immigration statistics, or the estimates of the foreign born population of the UK at various points throughout the century. His claim that seven million people had come to the UK since 2000 is similar to estimates based on recent data, which is less reliable than census figures.
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Alastair leads our fact-checking arm, The Ferret Fact Service, and writes about disinformation and conspiracy theories. He also delivers training on media literacy and spotting disinformation. He spends his free time at gigs in basements.
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