Friday, 11 April 2008

Immigrants and social housing

Trevor Phillips* and his crew have come up with this meaningless statistic:

"...90 per cent of people living in social housing were born in the UK"

Er, yeah ... out of the UK population as a whole, how many % were born in the UK? As at 2001, it was about 91.7 per cent, so given the mass immigration in the last ten years, on the face of it, that looks 'fair'...

"The study found that more than 60 per cent of people who have come to the UK in the last five years live in private rented accommodation".

In plain English ... "... nearly 40 per cent of people who have come to the UK in the last five years are in social housing**"

* A totally devious, corrupt, two-faced, lying shit, as it happens.

** Minus those who are owner-occupiers, of course. Possibly more relevant is that a lot of the 60 per cent in private rented accommodation might be claiming Housing Benefit.

Update: Madasafish lays into sloppy use of statistics here.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

That many? I don't know whether to be surprised or not.

Anonymous said...

That's interestin'. Looking back at your previous post, you said:

"Do recent immigrants - most of whom are white - get priority over UK-born people - of whatever colour?"

Now Phillips responds:

"...90 per cent of people living in social housing were born in the UK"

Your original question seems to have struck a nerve.

Mark Wadsworth said...

He's a slippery one, that Mr Phillips, he keeps changing the question to fit the answer.

Of course, nobody knows whether the figures of 91.7% or 90% are accurate, either.

rwendland said...

> nearly 40 per cent of people who have come to the UK in the last five years are in social housing

No, that doesn't seem to be a correct conclusion. The LGA press release says:

11 per cent of new migrants have been allocated social housing. The comparable figure for UK born residents is 17 per cent, and for all foreign born UK residents is 18 per cent indicating that though some migrants do benefit from social housing, they are unlikely to do so until they have been settled for several years and become British citizens; and that they are not significantly more likely to benefit than other residents.

No, I can't explain where the 29% gap (or is it 22%) go either. [Maybe relatives/friends sofas and employer provided accomodation?] I can't track down the original report at either the LGA or IPPR websites.

Mark Wadsworth said...

11% of new migrants

Gross annual migration into UK was 292,000 in 2005.

x 11% = 32,000

Units of social housing in UK = 3.6 million.

Turnover in social sector = about 3% = 108,000 units up for grabs. Let's assume two people per unit, 54,000 households become new social tenant, each year out of which there are 16,000 given to migrant households. That looks like a third of social homes becoming vacant given to new migrants to me, i.e. somewhere between the 18% and the 40%.

OK, this is all assumptions and guesswork, but the clue is in the statement "they are not significantly more likely to benefit than other residents".