“I don’t think enough attention has been given particularly to housing. In a world in which we don’t build houses, [a population increase] must push up prices.
“If you’re going to have more migration, you’ll need more housing. But it may well be that we just have to accept that we’re not good at building houses, and it’s not going to change any time soon. If so, we need to think about whether we need to control migration because of that.”
Sir Keir Starmer has said that he wants to reduce net migration. He will be helped by tighter rules introduced by the previous government, with figures widely expected to fall.
Mr Bell said he believed net migration would settle around 250,000 to 300,000 a year, returning close to the average over the past 20 years.
Getting it lower would require measures like capping international student and worker numbers, Mr Bell said.
Any impact from reducing the number of asylum seekers arriving in small boats would be negligible. Mr Bell said: “It will have almost no effect on net migration, because it’s 40,000 a year and net migration is 750,000.
“If you want to get net migration down, you have to deal with the health and care sector.”
Overhauling funding for the university and care sectors and ramping up the training of doctors and nurses are the best ways to address the country’s dependence on net migration, he said – both costly measures at a time of little money.