Why is housing still so expensive in Britain? Conservative MP and former levelling-up minister Neil O’Brien has produced a set of statistics which draws attention to the role of migration in the high cost of housing. Across England as a whole he says, 7.4 per cent of the population is made up of people who have arrived in the country since 2011. Over the same period, the housing stock has risen by 8.5 per cent. In London, 16.6 per cent of people have arrived since 2011, yet the housing stock has increased by only 10.7 per cent. No wonder, he points out, that 38 per cent of households in Britain are having to shell out more than 40 per cent of their disposable income on housing (mortgage or rent).
There is a flaw in O’Brien’s analysis. He only seems to be counting the people who have arrived in London. There is another side of the ledger: people who were living in England or London in 2011 but who are no longer living here. It
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