§ Lord Hamptonasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will agree with the previous government that England will need 4.4 million more houses by 2016 than there were in 1991; who worked out the figure of 4.4 million; and what assumptions underlie this figure as to movement of people around the country.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Baroness Hayman)The projections, which are for 4.4 million additional households not houses, were published in 1995 in my department's documentProjections of Households in England to 2016. They are only one of the factors that regional conferences of local authorities have to take into consideration when advising the Secretary of State on housing requirements in regional planning guidance. We are satisfied that the projections were the best that could be made with the 49WA available data and that they accurately reflect recent trends. The methodology to produce them has been broadly endorsed by independent inquiries, including the Environment Select Committee of the House of Commons in their Second Report on Housing Need (12 February 1996 HOC11/i/1995/1996/).
Migration assumptions of the sub-national population projections, on which the household projections were based, were initially derived by the Office for National Statistics. They were based on past trends in internal and international migration, from the National Health Service central register (showing movements of NHS doctors' patients), the 1991 census, and the international passenger survey. The Department of the Environment, and the Department of Health consulted local authorities and health authorities on these assumed migration patterns in two consultation phases.
The constraints on the consultation process were that there must be a net balance in internal migration, and net international migration must match the assumptions in national population projections. However, where possible, evidence for alternative local migration patterns, supplied by local authorities, was taken into account.