Angela Rayner has warned MPs not to underestimate her when it comes to the Government’s pledge to build 1.5 million homes by the end of this Parliament.
“Underestimate me at your peril,” the Deputy Prime Minister said, after shadow housing minister Paul Holmes claimed “she won’t achieve it”.
Mr Holmes pointed to research by estate agent Savills which forecast the Government will build 1.2 million homes by March 2029 “at most”, falling short of its target.
Speaking in the Commons, he said: “The Deputy Prime Minister has repeatedly stuck to her commitment that 1.5 million homes, including social homes, will be built over the lifetime of this Parliament, despite everybody knowing that she won’t achieve it.
“And today, the latest people to say she won’t are Savills, who have forecast that the true number she will build over this Parliament is just 840,000 and that means fewer social homes too.
“So will the Deputy Prime Minister confirm that now she has emerged from the dark rooms of the Treasury to capitulate to the Chancellor, more social homes will be built, and 1.5 million new homes will be built by the end of this Parliament? Yes or no?”
Ms Rayner replied: “The Opposition can’t have it both ways – one way they’re saying we’re failing to build the homes, and the other way they’re saying we’re concreting over the green belt.
“We said that planning reforms alone won’t deliver our ambitions, which is why we’ve committed to delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable house building in a generation.
“I say to (Mr Holmes), like I said to many people in my life, underestimate me at your peril.”
Dan Hill, from Savills’ research team, said housing completions are “likely to remain low” over the next few years, with between 160,000 and 170,000 being built annually.
He added: “Even with this, delivery will be constrained by the speed at which the housebuilding sector can expand its supply chains and labour force. This means completions are still likely to fall short of the Government’s target.
“At most, we think very significant demand support could push completions to 1.2 million new homes by March 2029.”
Elsewhere in the Commons, former prime minister Rishi Sunak pressed the minister to “commit to supporting more changing places toilets, across the country, so that families have both the opportunity and the dignity that they deserve”.
Housing minister Alex Norris said he shared Mr Sunak’s “enthusiasm” for changing places toilets, adding: “People will not be able to access the amenities on the high street if they don’t feel they can leave the home and have those facilities.”
As the then-chancellor, Mr Sunak committed to ensuring all new public buildings in England would be required to include changing places toilets for severely disabled people in 2020.
Earlier in the session, housing minister Matthew Pennycook said a consultation on leasehold and freehold reforms would begin “in the very near future”.
He had been asked by Labour MP Chris McDonald (Stockton North) about how the Government would ensure leaseholders would pay “fair service charges”.
The minister replied: “The Government recognises the considerable financial strain that rising service charges place on leaseholders and tenants. Overcharging through service charges is completely unacceptable.
“We intend to consult in the very near future on the measures in the Leasehold and Freehold Act 2024, designed to drive up the transparency of service charges, to make them more easily challengeable if leaseholders consider them to be unreasonable.”
