Keir Starmer has accused Rishi Sunak of “killing the dream of home ownership for a generation” with his decision to scrap housebuilding targets, as he again used prime minister’s questions to try to portray Sunak as privileged and out of touch.
Saying that hundreds of thousands of people would be paying higher mortgages because of the fiscal chaos amid Liz Truss’s brief administration, Starmer said the Conservatives had used people’s money “as a casino chip”.
Echoing a tactic used regularly in recent weeks, Starmer again highlighted Sunak’s enormous family wealth and his wife’s use of non-domiciled status to avoid paying UK tax on overseas earnings.
Asking Sunak how long it would take for the average saver to put together £9,000 for a mortgage deposit, a question the prime minister ignored, the Labour leader said this was four years, adding: “We’ll also put it in a different way in terms the prime minister will understand: roughly the annual bill to heat his swimming pool.”
He castigated Sunak for his decision last year to drop compulsory housebuilding targets for councils despite the crisis over a lack of housing, a decision made so Sunak could avoid a potential rebellion by Conservative MPs, themselves under pressure from Tory councillors.
“For most people, four more years of scrimping is a hammer blow to their ambitions,” Starmer said. “Now he’s kicking them when they’re down, because his decision to scrap housing targets is killing the dream of home ownership for a generation. Why doesn’t he admit he got it wrong and reverse it?”
Sunak replied by saying he had “put local people in control of new housing, and I’m proud that’s what I delivered within six weeks of becoming prime minister”, adding: “He [Starmer] wants to impose top-down housing targets. He wants to concrete over the green belt and ride roughshod over local communities.”
Starmer said Sunak had just caved in to political pressure: “His councillors simply don’t want to build the houses local people need, so he’s given them a way out. Why doesn’t he stop the excuses, stop blaming everyone else and just build some houses instead?”
In another regular PMQs motif, Starmer began the session by referring to the impact on mortgage rates of Truss’s plan for mass unfunded tax cuts, which spooked financial markets.
“Does the prime minister know how many mortgage payers are paying higher rates since the Tory party crashed the economy last autumn?” the Labour leader asked, again not getting an answer and so saying it was 850,000.
Starmer went on: “Nearly a million people pay more on their mortgage each month because his party used their money as a casino chip.”
Another 930,000 would be in this position by the end of the year, he added: “That’s why he won’t answer the questions. By the end of this year, nearly 2 million homeowners [will be] counting the cost of the Tories’ economic vandalism with every mortgage payment they make.”
At one point, Sunak said the last Labour government had said there was “no money left”, a reference to a joking note left by the then Treasury minister Liam Byrne to his coalition successors in 2010.
Starmer responded: “Debt doubled since 2010, growth down, tax up, the economy crashed – they’re going to need a bigger note.”
