... as Gove warns we cannot build enough homes to keep up with soaring migration

BRITAIN cannot build enough homes to keep up with current levels of net migration, Michael Gove has warned.

The Housing Secretary conceded that the Government will fail to build 300,000 homes annually by the end of this parliament.

Even if the Government were to hit its target, Mr Gove said, ministers must work to bring net migration down to reduce pressure on housing.

The Government has failed to meet the pledge – which was in the 2019 manifesto – in any single year since, with its best performance coming in 2019/20 when 248,591 homes were constructed.

Last month the Office for National Statistics forecasted that the UK population could reach nearly 74million by 2036 – including net migration of 6.1 million. ‘We recognise that most informed critics are concerned that even 300,000 new homes a year would not be enough to deal with additional demand,’ Mr Gove told peers this week.

‘We cannot have levels of net migration at levels that we’ve had recently, without such pressure on housing that it would be very, very difficult to meet.

‘Even as we need to increase the number of homes, we also need to reduce net migration. It’s a live debate about whether or not in the next parliament this 300,000 figure could or should be revisited.’ According to the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank, the predicted level of population growth will require at least 5.7million more homes in England over the next 15 years.

Ministers have come under pressure from the Right of the party in recent months to take stronger action to slash legal migration numbers. Mr Gove, who a few months ago said he was ‘confident’ of reaching the target by the mid-2020s, admitted ministers had failed to meet the commitment during this parliament.

He said the Government would only reach the 300,000 figure during the next parliament – which could run as late as 2029. He told the Lords built environment committee on Tuesday: ‘I would hope that we meet it in the next parliament, certainly when interest rates get back to a more normal level.

‘The principal cause for the slowdown in the housing market has been inflation and interest rate rises. The big reason (for low housebuilding) has been access to mortgage finance, the cost of materials, and tightness in the labour market. All the different manifestations are the causes or symptoms of inflation. That’s been the main blocker.’

He claimed the manifesto commitment was a ‘target we were setting ourselves as a government to achieve using all of the tools at our disposal’.

NO ONE can be surprised by the observation from Michael Gove that Britain is struggling to build anywhere near enough homes to meet demand.

After all, the Tories – supposedly champions of property ownership – have repeatedly caved in to well- off Nimby activists and watered down building targets.

But with refreshing candour, the housing minister admits that without curbing immigration, a lasting solution to the crisis will remain elusive. The huge influx is a major factor in soaring prices. If the young can’t afford to buy, they will never vote Tory.

The reality is, we can either have mass migration or affordable homes. It’s difficult to see how we can have both.

■ LIB Dem leader Sir Ed Davey’s attempt to squirm out of blame for the Post Office IT scandal is pathetic. He argues that in 2010, he became the first minister to meet the innocent sub-postmasters. Now we know why. Not over fears they were the victims of injustice, but because journalists were investigating and he wanted to avoid bad publicity. He’d earlier snubbed a meeting, saying it wouldn’t serve ‘any useful purpose’. With this stain on his record, does he?