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The former Education Secretary responsible for many of the Blair-era reforms to universities has said international students are pricing British students out of accommodation.

Lord Blunkett, who was head of the Department for Education under New Labour between 1997 and 2001, said the shortage of cheap rooms had reached a “crisis point” and had been exacerbated by a “post-Covid boom in demand” from overseas students.

He referenced reports of students at Bristol University being forced to live in Wales and commute to campus due to a lack of available accommodation and students taking gap years after not being able to find places to live.

He referenced reports of students at Bristol University being forced to live in Wales and commute to campus due to a lack of available accommodation and students taking gap years after not being able to find places to live.

He said the “crisis” stemmed in part from “universities’ failure to plan sufficiently far ahead for the steep rise in the number of domestic students caused by the demographic bulge in 18-year-olds”.

He added: “This, in turn, has been exacerbated by a post-Covid boom in demand for places from overseas students. Strikingly, a quarter of places at Russell Group universities in England went to international students last year – a rise from 16pc, on average, between 2012 and 2017, according to the dataHE consultancy.

At two universities, University College London and the LSE, international students now make up more than half of undergraduate admissions.”

Writing in the Daily Mail, Lord Blunkett described the actions of striking university lecturers as “an appalling act of sabotage”, condemning marking boycotts which have left students without grades and unable to officially graduate.

It comes as the University and College Union planned to continue the boycott into September, warning strike action would continue “well into 2024”.