The cost of renting an apartment rose a staggering 30 percent from mid-2021 to the start of this year, while wages rose 17 percent over the same period. Compare that to the previous decade’s record, when rents rose 26 percent, just 1 percent less than wage growth.
According to an analysis by Capital Economics, rents rose 11 percent higher in 2021-24 than they would have otherwise, thanks to the unprecedented immigration led by this government. Andrew Wishart, who leads the housing service at Capital Economics, said: “That means rents are 11 per cent higher than would be explained by the usual wage-to-rent ratio.” The vast majority of this is due to higher net migration attributable.”
The calculation is simple: figures show that in the two years from mid-2021 to June 2023, based on average household size, net immigration led to an additional 430,000 households looking for accommodation in the private rental sector. Meanwhile, the government’s own target of building 300,000 additional new homes each year was never met. More demand plus static provision means higher costs.
This catastrophic failure by ministers has an immediate and real impact on the quality of life of millions of people across the country. Yet even across the political divide, there is little talk of curbing immigration. More than 700,000 people arrived in the UK in 2022; to claim that this has not had a significant negative impact on local services, including housing, schools and hospitals, is dangerously irresponsible. And the extra economic growth and huge new tax revenues we were promised from the new arrivals? The UK’s weak growth figures and our historically high personal tax rates might suggest that this theory is reasonably optimistic.
Theresa May was never able to escape the shadow of her arrogant promise that the Conservatives would reduce net immigration to under 100,000 a year, especially since at the time she made that promise we were still in the EU and subject to free movement rules. She failed to come close to keeping that promise and her successors quietly abandoned it. Since leaving the EU the government has ensured record levels of immigration and as a result they are now responsible for the higher rents and pressure on local services that are the inevitable consequences of high immigration.
If ministers’ intention was to foment racial divisions in this country, they could hardly do a better job. More than any other European country, the British have welcomed and integrated into immigrant communities as long as their own living standards were not affected by their arrival. Now that we have direct, clear evidence that more than 10 percent of rent increases – particularly in London, where rents are the highest in the country – are due to immigration, it would only be natural that resentment – against immigration policy – would strengthen. if not against the immigrants themselves.
Does the government even have an immigration policy? Or does she believe that such decisions can be left to the market (and of course the higher education sector) to find the right level of immigration without ministerial interference?
This is a dangerous game. The traditional criticism of conservatives is that they champion the rights of elites and ignore the consequences for the most vulnerable. Anyone who rents and cannot yet afford to buy their own property should be a top priority for any government. These are the (predominantly) younger, emerging voters who will shape future electoral trends and elect future governments.
This current generation has been badly let down, not just by a government but also by a political philosophy that prioritizes newcomers over British citizens.