Record 745,000 net migration putting unsustainable pressure on Britain’s broken housing market, Michael Gove warns

MIGRANTS are putting huge and unsustainable pressure on Britain's broken housing market, Michael Gove warned today.

The Housing Secretary admitted the market's failure to keep pace with the number of people moving to Britain is "worse than you think".

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New statistics show a record 745,000 migrants came to Britain last year, despite repeated Tory pledges to cut numbers.

Asked if the UK doesn't have enough homes to match the demand from immigrants, Mr Gove told Times Radio: "Yes, in fact I think actually the situation is - if anything - worse than you depict."

The Housing Secretary said "we do need to bring migration down" to start repairing the overwhelmed housing system.

But he admitted regardless of immigration, far more houses need building.

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Mr Gove said: "It is the case that the migratory flows put more pressure on housing, but we haven't built enough homes overall for generations.

"I think we need to do both.

"I think it's important when we're looking at the migration figures to recognise that some of these figures are students, some of these figures are Ukrainian refugees, some of them are British nationals from Hong Kong.

"But you are right, we do need to bring migration down. And you're also correct, we do need to build more homes."

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Rishi Sunak has said ministers are on track to meet their target of building one million new homes before a general election next year.

But last year he axed the Tory manifesto commitment to build 300,000 new homes every year and watered down rules to enforce construction in local authorities.

This morning the PM pledged that more will be done to wrestle down soaring migration.

Speaking at the Global Investment Summit this morning, Mr Sunak conceded ministers had not done enough to honour their promises.

He said: “I'm very clear that the levels of net migration are too high. They need to come down to more sustainable levels.

"It is encouraging that the Office for National Statistics last week said the numbers are slowing but we need to do more.”