Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the effect of the potential underestimation of student emigration in the International Passenger Survey on the ability of local authorities to assess housing needs accurately.

To support local authorities to assess local housing needs the Government is consulting on a new standardised approach which will provide a transparent and consistent basis for the preparation of local plans. Our consultation Planning for the right homes in the right places was published on 14 September and will run for 8 weeks until 9 November. Our approach uses the 2014-based household projections which represent the best, evidence based, understanding of future household formation.

The UK’s official migration statistics are produced independently by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).