To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government which 20 foreign nationalities obtained the most social housing tenancies in each year since information on nationality in regard to tenancies began to be collected; and how many foreign nationals obtained such tenancies in each of those years. (206259)

I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 16 May 2008, Official Report, column 1800W.

A question on nationality was first introduced to the Continuous Recording of Lettings form (CORE) for the 2006-07 data collection period. From this information it is possible to identify separately new tenants who are UK nationals and nationals of each of the A8 Eastern European accession states. It is not possible to separately identify the nationality of tenants recorded as from “other European Economic Area countries” or from “any other countries”.

Due to gaps in local authority data, the Department will not be making overall estimates for the number of new social housing lettings made to each of the recorded nationalities.

However, information provided by Registered Social Landlords during 2006-07 on tenant’s nationality can be found on the CORE website at:

www.core.ac.uk

in table 6 of the ‘CORE Annual Digest for Housing Associations 2006-07’.

Similar information for those local authorities who did provide returns during 2006-07 is also available in table 6 of the ‘CORE Annual Digest for Local Authorities 2006-07’. It should however be noted that not all local authorities provided information during 2006-07 and for those that did, not all provided complete information. As a result the local authority information is not complete across England and should not be used to provide a national estimate.