'Getting a grip on immigration is key step to easing housing crisis'

IT'S time to "get a grip" on immigration to end Britain's housing crisis, ministers were told last night.

- Michael Knowles

Think tank the Centre for Policy Studies said the Government's target to build 300,000 homes a year is based on net migration being 170,500 a year.

But the number hit a record 745,000 in the year to December the highest on record.

Some 515,000 homes would need to be built every year to cope with the current levels.

Karl Williams, deputy research director, said: "These figures highlight the historic rise in net migration and the failure of successive governments in tackling the housing crisis.

"Not only are we not building enough homes to meet demand from people already living in the UK, we are not even properly taking into account the needs of arrivals.

"The Government needs to get a grip on the immigration system to deliver the control it promised at the last election and do more to encourage housebuilding - greenfield and brownfield, urban and rural, North and South." If not, a growing portion of the population would "find themselves locked out of home ownership by our cavernous housing deficit."

Threshold

The think tank urged ministers to introduce a cap from 2025. The Home Office could increase the minimum salary threshold for skilled worker visas - something also supported by Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick - and clamp down on "low quality" university degrees.