Sir James Cleverly, the expected Conservative candidate for the London mayoral race, claimed ahead of the party conference that he can reduce new housing prices in the capital by £100,000 to curb an ongoing brain drain of young talent. Speaking to The Independent, the 57-year-old former foreign and home secretary warned that the city is losing residents on modest salaries to overseas hubs like Dubai and regional UK towns.
The Scale of London’s Migration Shift
According to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), about 420,500 people moved out of London to other parts of the United Kingdom in the year leading up to mid-2025. During the same 12-month period, roughly 183,000 residents left the capital to live abroad, pushing total departures past 600,000.
Sir James described the broader trend as unsustainable, pointing out that individuals on modest salaries are finding it increasingly difficult to make city life financially viable.
We are losing talent. We’re losing young people from London. That is unsustainable,
Sir James told The Independent.
He noted that the phenomenon extends beyond ultra-wealthy figures relocating abroad, noting that individuals priced out of the capital are regularly moving to towns such as Braintree, Maidstone, Milton Keynes, and Hemel Hempstead.
Targeting the Cost of New Builds
To reverse the trend, the mayoral hopeful argued that mayoral powers must be deployed to strip away regulatory and financial burdens from residential development. He asserted that the accumulated cost of bureaucracy and taxes adds approximately £100,000 to the price of every new build property in London.
That’s £100,000 that doesn’t go into the bricks or mortar. It doesn’t go into the windows and doors. It just gets soaked up by tax and bureaucracy,
he said.
Polling indicates that housing costs remain a dominant concern for Londoners. A YouGov poll conducted in August 2026 placed property prices as the third-highest public concern at 39 percent, trailing cost-of-living pressures at 72 percent and crime at 44 percent.
Alongside housing supply costs, Sir James suggested he would examine council tax adjustments—noting the mayor controls roughly half of the municipal tax bill—as well as transport fares and driving levies like the Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) in outer boroughs to ease financial pressure.
| Metric | Figure | Timeframe |
|---|---|---|
| Domestic Outflows from London | 420,500 | Year to mid-2025 (ONS) |
| International Outflows from London | 183,000 | Year to mid-2025 (ONS) |
| Domestic Inflows to London | 288,500 | Year to mid-2025 (ONS) |
| International Inflows to London | 235,000 | Year to mid-2025 (ONS) |
| Housing Cost Concern in Polling | 39 percent | August 2026 YouGov Poll |
The Political Battleground Over Brexit and Regulation
The mayoral contest is also sharpening differences over the United Kingdom’s relationship with the European Union. At the preceding week’s Labour Party conference, Sir Sadiq Khan renewed calls for the UK to rejoin the EU, while figures like Andy Burnham suggested that a return to the bloc could feature in Labour’s next general election manifesto.
Sir James, who supported Brexit during the 2016 referendum, warned that any attempt to reverse the decision could imperil London’s economic standing, particularly in emerging technological fields.
The UK is the world’s third largest hub for AI development because we have a different regulatory regime to the EU,
he said. So, if you’re happy to basically kill off London’s tech sector…
As the Conservative Party conference approaches, the intersection of housing affordability, municipal taxation, and post-Brexit regulatory divergence is shaping up as a central axis of debate for the upcoming mayoral election.
