Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner haven’t got a clue | U.Ok.Finance News
When Labour got here to energy after final yr’s basic election, I harboured the faint hope they may truly know what they have been doing. That evaporated in file time. On 22 July final yr, I wrote a piece dismantling the PM’s headline pledge to construct 1.5million properties this Parliament – and predicted it might blow up in his face.As anybody with half a mind might see (even me!), the numbers merely didn’t add up. Starmer handed deputy PM Angela Rayner the job of making it occur. Predictably, the entire thing has flopped.A yr on, the outcomes are in. And I used to be proper. That goal won’t ever be hit. Rayner will not even come close.I didn’t need a crystal ball. I simply learn housebuilder experiences. Barratt Developments, the UK’s greatest builder, accomplished simply 14,004 properties within the yr to June 2024. That was a drop of virtually 20% on the earlier yr.Persimmon constructed 10,664 properties in 2024. This yr, it’ll full 11,500 at most.Taylor Wimpey delivered 10,593 properties final yr. With luck, it could handle 10,800 this yr.These are the UK’s three greatest housebuilders and they’re nowhere close to hitting Starmer’s goal.To obtain his aim, Starmer needed a 63% increase in annual housebuilding, from 184,390 in 2024 to 300,000. That’s clearly not going to occur.The Home Builders Federation says the quantity of residential planning approvals truly fell by 37% within the first quarter of 2025. That’s a 12-year low.Every authorities that’s tried to ramp up housebuilding has failed. Gordon Brown set a 240,000-a-year goal in 2007. He managed 142,000.Boris Johnson promised 300,000 a yr and by no means got here close. So what made Starmer and Rayner suppose they’d magically succeed the place everybody else failed?Answer: they didn’t suppose. They simply boasted.This isn’t a minor embarrassment. It’s a complete financial strategy fail.Housebuilding was Labour’s solely actual growth plan. Reeves and Starmer pinned the whole lot on it. The Office for Budget Responsibility projected it might enhance GDP by £3.4billion by 2030 – however provided that completions jumped to 305,000 a yr.They received’t.Instead of incentivising builders, Reeves has pushed up their prices, by mountaineering the minimal wage and employer’s national insurance coverage.Meanwhile, the UK population rose by 706,000 during the last yr as immigration surged, worsening the housing disaster. Labour’s central growth plan is already falling aside, simply as I warned.And right here’s the scary bit: it was all that they had.
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