Social Rented Housing: Foreign Nationals
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether she has made an assessment of the number of social housing tenants in (a) England, (b) London and (c) each local authority in England who were born outside the United Kingdom.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook
People are generally eligible for social housing if they have leave to remain in the UK and have recourse to public funds. The Home Office decides whether persons from abroad have leave to remain in the UK and whether they have recourse to public funds.
Only individuals that are eligible can join housing registers and be given a social housing tenancy. For those who are eligible, housing needs will be considered on an equal basis in accordance with the relevant local authority’s housing allocation scheme.
According to the relevant 2021 Census extract, there were 796,000 households living in the social rented sector in England in March 2021 that were headed by someone who was not born in the UK. It is important to note that such households may contain UK nationals as well as non-UK national lead tenants.
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