TORY Housing Minister Dominic Raab has admitted that mass immigration has put UK house prices up by 20% over the past 25 years.
“You can’t have housing taken out of the debate around immigration,” he told the Sunday Times.
“If we delivered on the Government’s target of reducing immigration to the tens of thousands every year, that would have a material impact on the number of homes we need to build every year.”
Raab revealed that he is writing to the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to ask it to consider the negative effects mass migration on housing demand.
Raab added that Britain’s post-Brexit border rules must take account of demand for affordable homes.
UKIP leader Gerard Batten said: “At Long last, the Government have accepted the obvious.”
“If you increase demand in a limited market, and 300,000 net inward migration cannot but do this, then prices, both to buy and to rent, will rise.
I’m just amazed that it has taken so long for anybody in the main parties to acknowledge the obvious.”