‘Nine in 10 new households headed by an immigrant’

NINE out of 10 new households created in Britain over the past decade were headed up by someone not born in the UK, research has revealed.

Campaigners are warning that the Government has “seriously understated” the impact migration has on housing and are calling on ministers to review urgently the need created by people moving to Britain.

Figures compiled by Migration Watch UK and produced by the Office for National Statistics show that between 2005 and 2015, 90 per cent of additional homes created had someone born in another country as head of the household.

However, the group, which campaigns for lower migration, said estimates of the proportion of projected household growth resulting from net migration was “thoroughly misleading” because the Government has not taken this upward trend into account. It warns that the Department for Communities and Local Government figures did not take into account the existing large population of migrants in the UK who need homes, and that the projections for future immigration are conservative.

Sajid Javid’s claim that “two thirds of housing demand has nothing to do with immigration; it is to do with natural population growth” is “entirely false and misleading” the group said.

Whitehall figures claim the impact of migration will account for 37 per cent of future housing need in Britain, but campaigners believe the real impact is far higher and should be taken into account ahead of the Budget.

♦ EU nationals do not have to face the same tough rules as Britons to bring non-eu spouses into the UK, the European Court of Justice ruled yesterday. Judges said the Home Office was wrong to refuse an Algerian, who had overstayed his visa, the right to stay after he married a Spanish woman who had taken UK citizenship.