Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of UK citizens who have emigrated to reside in (1) Australia, and (2) New Zealand, in each of the last three years.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. I have therefore asked the Authority to respond.

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 UK citizens who have emigrated to reside in (1) Australia, and (2) New Zealand, in each of the last three years (HL7697).

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes statistics based on the International Passenger Survey (IPS), giving estimates of the numbers of people emigrating from the UK and detailing the country of next residence[i]. Table 1 shows the number of people the ONS estimates emigrated to Australia and New Zealand in 2016, 2017 and 2018, the most recent years for which data is available. Estimates for 2019 are due to be published in November 2020.

Table 1: UK Citizens emigrating to Australia and New Zealand in thousands

Source: ONS IPS Table 4.01, Citizenship group by sex, age and country of last or next residence

Yours sincerely,

Professor Sir Ian Diamond

[i]https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/datasets/ipscitizenshipgroupbysexbyagebycountryoflastornextresidence