John Healey slams Osborne’s housebuilding bluster

George Osborne is receiving praise in the press this morning for his expected pledge to invest in housebuilding during the Autumn Statement today. However, the 400,000 subsidised homes he is expected to pledge be built by 2020 comes after Housing minister Brandon Lewis said a million would be built back in September.

Ahead of Osborne’s address to the Commons this afternoon, Labour have slammed the Tories’ “bluster”, and pointed out that David Cameron has presided over the worst peacetime record of housebuilding since the 1920s.

“If hot air built homes, then Conservative Ministers would have our housing crisis sorted,” blasted Shadow Housing Secretary John Healey. “A matter of weeks ago the Housing Minister promised a million more homes, now George Osborne is saying they’ll build 400,000 more. Rather than rate them on what they say they will do, people will judge them on what they’ve actually done.”

Healey said that the Tories represent “five years of failure” on housing, and that big promises won’t cuts it when people have seen the housing crisis get so much worse since 2010:

“The Tories’ housing record speaks for itself. The lowest peacetime level of housebuilding since David Lloyd George was prime minister in the 1920s, home ownership fallen year-on-year to the lowest level in a generation, and alongside the lowest number of genuinely affordable homes built in two decades, the number of affordable homes to buy halved since 2010.

“On housing, the Tory record is five years of failure on every front. Bluster about big housebuilding figures simply won’t cut it when people have seen the country’s housing crisis get worse with Osborne as Chancellor.”