Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will make an assessment of the effect on the domestic housing market of the exclusive sale of housing units in regenerated urban estates to foreign and offshore investors.

My Department has no plans to restrict foreign ownership of new residential property in the UK, but will keep the issue under review. Research on foreign ownership of new build housing in London (LSE and York University for the Greater London Authority, May 2017) found that less than 20 per cent had been sold to foreign investors. Of this 20 per cent they have largely (70 per cent plus) been rented to Londoners. The report also outlined the importance of these sales in terms of pre-sales commitments to enable the construction of major developments.