Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of EU nationals working in the travel and hospitality sectors of the UK economy.

​The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

Letter from John Pullinger CB, National Statistician, to The Rt Hon. the Lord Pendry, dated 10 May 2018.

Dear Lord Pendry,

As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking what estimate has been made of the number of EU nationals working in the travel and hospitality sectors of the UK economy (HL7570).

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) compiles labour market statistics for people in employment by industry and by nationality from the Annual Population Survey (APS), a household survey of people in the UK. People are classified to industry groups and nationality based on responses given during survey interview.

ONS classifies people to industry groups in line with the Standard Industrial Classification 2007 (SIC2007). We have defined the travel and hospitality sectors to include industries covering accommodation for visitors, food and beverage servicing activities, passenger transport, vehicle hire and travel agencies.

For the period January 2017 to December 2017, the latest period available, the total number of EU nationals, including UK nationals, working in the travel and hospitality sectors was 2,141,000. Of these, 1,853,000 were UK nationals, with the remaining 288,000 nationals of other EU countries.

As with any sample survey, APS estimates are subject to a certain level of uncertainty.

Yours sincerely,

John Pullinger