Recent comments by Margaret Hodge have caused quite a stir! Margaret called for priority to be given to established British families over economic migrants for council housing claiming that, “We prioritise the needs of an individual migrant family over the entitlement others feel they have, we should look at policies where the legitimate sense of entitlement felt by the indigenous family overrides the legitimate need demonstrated by the new migrants.”

This is actually not true, as Ken Livingstone points out in an excellent rebuttal to Margaret’s claims in his article in Tribune. He points out the numerous mistakes she makes, a summary of which is below:

“Hodge is wrong. Her local council, Barking and Dagenham, was forced to point out that anyone entering the borough from the new eastern European states has to be a resident in the borough for 12 months and have been in full-time employment for 12 months before they can even apply to be placed on the council's housing register, and even then priority housing is allocated on need and the length of time on the waiting list. And non-European Union "economic migrants" don't enjoy even the most basic rights to housing. Legislation denies them any recourse to public funds for at least four years after their arrival in Britain.”

“EU accession state nationals do have certain rights - enshrined in EU treaties - but almost none are eligible for priority housing as they are nearly always in work. Only one in 800 local authority lettings are made to this group nationally.”

“Far from it being the case that immigrants are jumping the housing queue, the allocation policies for scarce affordable housing in London, together with the harsh realities of our national immigration policy, make it exceptionally difficult for immigrants to get housing, even if they face acute needs […] The real issue is that we need a lot more affordable housing.”