Immigrant figures are correct

The Chartered Institute of Housing was also party to the original work, commissioned by the EHRC and the Local Government Association in 2008. Like the researchers from the Institute for Public Policy Research, whose findings Mr Pankhurst questions, we also reached the conclusion that new migrants form a very small proportion of those getting new lettings in social housing.

Mr Pankhurst says the statistics are ‘misleading’, but they come from the Continuous Recording System returns from housing associations and local authorities and can be seen on the CORE website.

We looked specifically at migrants from the new EU member states. Last year, they made up less than one per cent of new lettings and the most recent figure shows that this has hardly changed. Overall, foreign-born applicants make up less than 5 per cent of lettings, and most of these are not recent migrants.

Indeed the IPPR showed from the labour force survey that less than 2 per cent of social tenants are people who have arrived in Britain within the last five years. Some of these are likely to be to refugees, who are not allowed to work (in most cases) until they are given refugee status. This means they are unlikely to have the money to put down a deposit for a private-rented flat, much less to buy a house.

If Mr Pankhurst and other correspondents think these figures are wrong, why do they suppose that social landlords are supplying inaccurate information for their CORE returns?

John Perry, policy adviser, Chartered Institute of Housing

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