Current net migration statistics are "blunt
instruments", the MPs said
Official UK migration figures are
"little better than a best guess", a group of influential MPs has warned.
The Public Administration Committee said the statistics were "not fit for purpose" and did not accurately assess how many non-UK residents were entering and leaving the country.
The MPs recommended finding new ways to gather migration information.
The government rejected the committee's conclusions, saying net migration was at its lowest level for decades.
In the year to June 2012, immigration was estimated at 515,000 while emigration was estimated at 352,000.
Net migration - the difference between the number of people entering and leaving the country - was estimated at 163,000.
'Blunt instruments'
The coalition has set itself a target to reduce the net migration figure from non-EU countries to less than 100,000 a year by 2015.
But the MPs warned that current net migration statistics produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Home Office were "blunt instruments" and were "not adequate for understanding the scale and complexity of modern migration flows".
In particular the MPs criticised the main source for producing migration figures - the International Passenger Survey (IPS).
It was designed in the early 1960s to examine tourism trends - something it is still used for today - and is based on "random interviews" with travellers at ports and airports
The Public Administration Committee said just 5,000 migrants a year were identified through the survey and it had a "large margin of error".
It said the migration estimates based on the IPS were "too uncertain" to accurately measure progress against the government's net migration target.
And the IPS fails to gather the type of information needed to work out the social and economic consequences of migration, such as demand for the NHS or schools, the MPs said.
The committee chairman, Conservative Bernard Jenkin, said: "Most people would be utterly astonished to learn that there is no attempt to count people as they enter or leave the UK.
"As an island nation, with professional statisticians and effective border controls, we could gain decent estimates of who exactly is coming into this country, where they come from, and why they are coming here.
"As it is, the top line numbers for the government's 100,000 net migration target are little better than a best guess - and could be out by tens of thousands. Clearly these statistics are not fit for purpose in the longer term."
'Dodgy statistics'
The committee said migration figures could be considerably improved if the Home Office and ONS properly recorded and linked the data they already gathered.
They also called for the e-Borders system - which once operational is expected to collect details from passenger lists of all people entering and leaving the UK - to be implemented as quickly as possible.
A Home Office spokesman said: "We disagree with the report's conclusions. Government reforms on immigration are working and the statistics do show that net migration is at its lowest level for a decade.
"The government is determined to build a fairer system and to address the public's concern about immigration.
"We are committed to getting net migration down from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands, and we want to be judged against the very best available evidence."
Shadow immigration minister Chris Bryant said the report cast doubt on the government's claims to have cut net migration.
"People want a bit of honesty on immigration, so the home secretary should look at how to measure immigration more accurately as a matter of urgency," he said.
"Grand speeches, gimmicks and dodgy statistics don't cut much ice, especially when the government still don't even have a plan to count people in and out of the country."
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