UK: Number of Households

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for furnishing me with a figure beforehand of an increase of two-thirds. I have asked the ONS to look into this figure and if he is agreeable, I will confirm it in due course. In terms of supply and demand, we are focusing on both those things. We are doing many things to address the demand on housing in this country from overseas, including tightening the rules for family and student visas.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the country has benefited from both skilled and, to some extent, unskilled immigration, but that the appropriate measure of the extent to which this is so is not GDP growth but GDP per capita? Judged by that standard, the evidence is somewhat doubtful. Does she further agree that GDP growth reflects nothing but population growth, is of no particular economic advantage and, as the noble Lord, Lord Green, has pointed out, merely adds to the pressure on infrastructure and housing?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

There is no doubt that there is pressure on housing demand from all sorts of sources, including immigration. The point that I was trying to make is that we want skilled people to come here to fill some of the skills gaps, but we do not want people simply coming here to look for work without having secured a job.