Official statistics show that 251,866 social homes were made available in 2022-23, of which one in 10 went to a non-UK national.
Of those, 9,824 went to people from the European Economic Area – the EU plus Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland – and 16,352 to people from the rest of the world.
The share of social homes granted to foreign nationals has almost doubled over the past 15 years from 5.8 per cent in 2009-10 to 10.4 per cent in 2022-23.
Government figures only show who the “lead tenant” is, meaning that British citizens may be living in some of those homes.
Many migrants do not qualify for social housing, including small boat arrivals who have not yet had their asylum applications processed.
Economic migrants on work visas and foreign students do not have recourse to public funds and are therefore not eligible either.
But the Government is set to fast-track the asylum applications of 90,000 illegal migrants who had been earmarked for deportation to Rwanda.
It is expected that two-thirds of them will be granted the right to remain, meaning that they could then qualify to apply for social housing.
Many would struggle to quickly get a social home though because nine in 10 councils require applicants to have lived in their local area for some time.