Riski Sunak refused to say whether the conservatives have stood by their manifesto target of building 300,000 homes a year and Kier Starmer has accused him of “shattering” the dream of homeownership, as reported by the Times.
Before this, the prime minister said 2.2 million additional homes had been built by the Conservatives. Keir Starmer also said that Labour will allow more homes to be built on green belt land and relax planning restrictions in May.
The Conservative manifesto pledge was done to address the housing shortages felt across the UK. However, critics argued this would place greater pressure on local authorities to meet the figures.
The Conservative Party adverts – which Labour drew attention to – “accuse the Liberal Democrats of pledging to build 300,000 homes a year” and claim that the “tories will protect the green belt and appear to crisis the idea of a housing crisis”.
In the same article, Starmer said that the failure to build enough homes was “shattering” the hopes of younger generations trying to get on the housing ladder and also said that Sunak was the “only person in the country who thinks enough houses have been build in the last 13 years”.
Sunak said:
“Can I just remind [him] of our record since being in office, 2.2 million additional homes, housing starts double the number we inherited from the Labour Party.
More homes meeting the decent home standards, housing supply up 10% in the last year that we have figures for and, in the last year we had figures for, we also saw a 20-year high in the number of first-time buyers — that’s a Conservative government delivering for this country.”
