It’s not racist to say that migration has fuelled the housing crisis. So why won’t any politician dare do it?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if politicians could agree that next year they will accept the major role immigration has played in putting pressure on housing, the nHS and schools. Pigs might fly!

they were at it again yesterday during Prime Minister’s Questions. labour’s Rosena Allin-Khan claimed in sepulchral tones that 2,500 children in her Wandsworth constituency will be waking up homeless on Christmas morning.

I wager it has never occurred to Rosena Allin-Khan for a single second in all of her 40 years that mass immigration has contributed significantly to homelessness. Her stock explanation yesterday was austerity, which she insisted must be ended forthwith.

theresa May reasonably replied that being homeless did not mean sleeping rough. But she didn’t drop the slightest hint that the greatest demographic upheaval in our history has a lot to do with the scarcity of affordable housing. She never does. nor does any minister.

then Jeremy Corbyn reprised his familiar routine of claiming the nHS is in crisis simply because the Government has not sunk enough billions into it. the notion that rapidly rising demand on our health services has been partly stoked by unprecedented levels of immigration has not yet penetrated his cloudy mind.

Why is it politicians of both parties, and the BBC and much of the media, will not mention the dreaded ‘I’ word in relation to the scarcity of resources? It surely can’t just be because they are boneheaded or ignorant.

no, I suspect the deeper reason is they are terrified of being thought racist. this is the accusation they most fear. So every ding- dong about the allocation of resources proceeds without anyone mentioning the gigantic, but perennially mute, elephant in the room.

Well, it’s not remotely racist to suggest that if a country has net migration of around 250,000 every year for ten years, that is bound to place an extra strain on public services and the availability of housing.

Can’t we all agree that immigration has been in many ways a great boon for this country, while accepting at the same time that too much of it too quickly is bound to lead to problems? For the life of me, I can’t see why this is ‘racist’.

VERY occasionally a body with a calm and analytical approach, and without any taint of racism, casts some light on a debate normally carried on in complete darkness. one such organisation is Migration Watch, whose figures, I know from experience, are copper-bottomed.

According to a new report by Migration Watch, high levels of net migration have driven the soaring demand for rental properties over the past decade. young people are paying the price through ever higher rentals, which in turn make it more difficult for them to save for a deposit.

What! think of all the millions of young people who voted for Jeremy Corbyn in June, partly because they believed (wrongly) he would abolish tuition fees, and partly because they were cheesed off by soaring rents and not being able to buy homes until they are middle-aged.

Get a few representatives of this disgruntled tribe in a room and I’ve no doubt they would be astonished to learn the housing crisis is in large measure driven by uncontrolled immigration — of which they probably, in most instances, whole-heartedly approve.

no, they would protest. It’s the Government’s fault for not building enough houses, or the result of greedy and unscrupulous landlords driving up rents. I’m sure that’s what Jeremy thinks.

But look at the figures — all in the public domain — which Migration Watch has brought together. As supply has failed to keep pace with demand, rents in england have risen 23 per cent over the past decade.

It’s even worse in london, where between January 2008 and January 2017 rents have increased by 36 per cent, considerably more than the 21 per cent rise in average earnings.

over the same period, homes headed by someone born abroad accounted for more than 80 per cent — I repeat, 80 per cent — of the total growth (265,000 out of a 328,000 net increase) of households in london’s rented sector.

the report points out that across england, out of the net increase of just over 1.2 million in the number of new households between 2005 and 2014, more than 1.1 million had a foreign-born head.

What is to be done? Some people simply call for more housing, even if this means building on Green Belt land. But successive governments seem incapable of putting up enough new homes. the annual average of new houses over the past decade is only 130,000, though it is estimated 300,000 a year are needed.

despite the Government’s recent pledge to build more homes, it would take a very wild optimist to think that the huge imbalance between supply and demand is going to be corrected any time soon.

It’s only common sense. If the population of a small island increases by the equivalent of a city the size of Portsmouth every year for ten years, there are bound to be new burdens — and not just on housing.

A report in today’s Mail reveals almost 140,000 errors occurred on nHS maternity wards last year, ranging from harmless blunders to very serious errors which led to brain damage or death.

MATERNITY wards are evidently under severe strain. the Jeremy Corbyns of this world will, as usual, automatically blame lack of resources, but there is much more to it than that. one cause is a larger number of complex deliveries because of older or overweight mothers. Another factor is a high birth-rate partly fuelled by migration.

According to the office for national Statistics, more than six in ten babies born in london hospitals last year had mothers who are either immigrants or were visiting from abroad. Is it any surprise these units are under such pressure?

Austerity, austerity, austerity is the unthinking mantra of the left in response to our often buckling public services. too much immigration in too short a period of time would probably be a more accurate explanation.

And yet both Government and opposition and much of the media persist in playing fantasy politics in which no one ever alludes to one major reason for our services being so overstretched.

I can’t be alone in finding such ingrained dishonesty very depressing. It shouldn’t be beyond the wit of intelligent politicians to extol the enormous contribution which immigrants make to our society while accepting there is sometimes too heavy a social cost.

of course sensible people — including many recent immigrants — know the real score: the lengthening queues at A&e and in GP surgeries, the pressure on school places and the housing crisis, all of which are at least partly attributable to letting immigration run riot.

And that is why getting back control of our borders, so net migration can be reduced to less than 100,000 a year, remains the cornerstone of Brexit negotiations — and we mustn’t let the Government forget it.

labour’s solution of evergreater public spending will never work because there simply isn’t enough money. Where is the reputable politician brave enough to tell the truth — which is that lower migration will take some of the strain off housing and give us better public services?