If they repeat a lie often enough ... I still won't believe it

From The BBC:

There is no evidence that new arrivals in the UK are able to jump council housing queues, an Equality and Human Rights Commission report says.

I duly followed the links all the way to the 68 page report (pdf). Apart from rehashing the same old stats that suggest that one-in-ten units of social housing are given to "recent arrivals" (primarily successful asylum seekers), I find this fine summary on pages 25 to 26 (reproduced below).

Doesn't this all exactly confirm what we suspected? Agreed, the BNP has vastly exaggerated this, but they are no more guilty of distorting the statistics than the EHRC.
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"Only four country-of-birth groups have higher proportions of persons living in social housing than the UK-born population. These are the Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Jamaica and Somalia-born populations. Over 95 per cent of the Somalia born population lives in rental accommodation and of this group, nearly 80 per cent are in social housing. However, these groups are numerically small in relation to the total of social tenants in the UK.

The overall size of the Somalia-born population is small - an estimated 92,200 persons in Quarter Three of 2007, of which 72,800 were social tenants, compared with 8.4 million UK-born social tenants. An LFS analysis estimates that 73 per cent Afghanistan-born persons were social tenants, amounting to just 19,200 people.

A number of factors account for the over-representation as social tenants of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Jamaica and Somalia-born populations. These include:
• Lower household income, thus an inability to purchase property (for Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Somalia-born populations).
• Larger family size, with many families being unable to afford suitable properties (for Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Somalia-born populations).
• A preference for settlement in London, where property prices are higher and greater proportions of all country-of-birth groups are social tenants (for all four groups and UK-born populations).
• High proportions of new arrivals among the population, with new arrivals least likely to have accumulated the savings needed to purchase property (for Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Somalia-born populations).

Thus for each foreign-born group, a number of factors cause particular patterns of housing tenure. Three examples are given below.
• The India-born population has a low uptake of social housing. It is predominantly a long-settled community in the UK, whose average income is higher than the UK mean. Newer arrivals are largely highly-skilled work visa holders or students who have no entitlement to social housing. The factors that account for a low uptake of social housing are high-income levels and immigration status.
• The Polish-born population has a low uptake of social housing. Most of the community has migrated since 2002 and its average income is lower than the UK mean. Poland-born migrants are largely childless and many Poles aspire to return home. Some Poles are also living in tied accommodation. The factors that account for a low uptake of social housing comprise alternative forms of accommodation and family characteristics; as most Polish migrants have no children they would not be prioritised for social housing.
• The Somalia-born population has a high uptake of social housing. Most Somalia-born persons living in the UK have secured refugee status, settled status or UK or EEA citizenship thus qualifying them for social housing. Many Somalis migrated as family groups with their children and family size is much larger than the UK mean. The Somaliaborn population includes many people who are economically inactive or unemployed. Those in work have an average income much lower than the UK mean. The factors that account for a high uptake of social housing comprise low household incomes, large family size and immigration status."