Government admits it has NO IDEA how many millions of EU nationals are in Britain

ANY number of EU nationals could be living in Britain as officials don’t have an idea – the Immigration Minister admitted today.

Robert Goodwill and his chief immigration official admitted the Government could only guess the actual number of EU citizens who have crossed the border.

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Sarah Rapson, director general of the UK Visa and Immigration Directorate told MPs she relied on estimates from the Office for National Statistics.

She left MPs open mouthed by admitting: “We know the number of EU citizens who hold permanent residency but not the full total as they’re not required to register.”

Pressed on how many may have a National Insurance number she added: “That’s not something I would know.”

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Labour’s Chuka Ummuna said the revelation made a mockery of threats to send home EU nationals in Brexit negotiations unless they have lived in Britain for 5 years.

Speaking to the Home Affairs Select Committee, Ms Rapson admitted the Government had no idea who had been here for more than 5 years.

The ONS believes as many as 3.5 million EU nationals are living in Britain.

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But just two weeks ago experts told the Sun that official stats were under-counting the number of EU nationals in work in the UK by as much as 800,000 people.

Mr Goodwill told the committee it remained the Government’s aim to bring net migration to below the ‘tens of thousands’ “as soon as possible”.

He added the Government would clampdown on all visa routes – and would KEEP students in the target rather than “fiddling” the figure by taking them out.

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And he reiterated Britain was helping to build a vast concrete barrier at Calais to try and stop migrants reaching the UK - a “Great Wall” first mooted in July.

Today’s exchange came 24 hours after it emerged Theresa May was being urged to ban jobless EU migrants from coming to the UK as part of a Brexit package to bring immigration down.

The PM’s official spokeswoman yesterday said “various” ideas were being considered.

“We will come forward in due course with proposals,” she added.