Angela Rayner insists 1.5 million new home target is still possible, despite rising cost of living

The country's biggest housebuilders, councils and housing chiefs will be brought together by Angela Rayner next week as she pushes for a “new wave” of homes to “turn the tide” on the crisis.The Housing Secretary will convene the first national housing delivery board on Tuesday.Its purpose is to look at where building standards and regulations, as well as the planning system, are slowing down efforts to build.Highlighting the meeting as an important step, she told the committee: "I do not accept that I need to readdress that target.“I know it’s a challenge. I know that people will come to me at the end of this Parliament and will say ‘You haven’t met that target’ if I don’t meet it and I’m determined to do everything I possibly can.”Her appearance before the Commons Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee came on Wednesday.Concerns have been raised that the government's flagship target of 1.5 million homes by the next general election will not be met within the timeframe.In response to questions, the Housing Secretary insisted she was “realistic about the challenges we face”.But she rejected suggestions the target would not be delivered despite rising costs and other challenges.Ms Rayner has said she refuses to “admit defeat” on the target.Labour has pledged to build 1.5 million homes by the next election, but will need to increase the pace of building if it is to meet its targetPA WireReferring to her two terms as Housing Secretary as “album one” and “album two”, Ms Rayner said: "In album one, the situation when we created the target of 1.5 million homes, the media were particularly saying that it's impossible, we can't do it. So we knew it was a difficult target then."Since then, in album two, since I returned we've obviously got the war in the Middle East that has increased costs."Construction costs have gone up by 40%. The cost of living is having an effect on people's finances, so there has been challenges in terms of meeting that target.Read More“But I’m not giving up on that target, chair, and I refuse to admit defeat on it.”Ms Rayner highlighted that 437,000 homes had been built since the general election.Building starts, she said, were up by 20% on last year.She added: “We always knew the changes would take time to come in: the biggest wave of social and affordable housing, the investment we’ve put in, which is 40 billion, and the changes to national planning policy framework and the housing bills we’ve got going through Parliament – all our measures in which we’re trying to ensure that the delivery ramps up and is sustainable going on beyond this Parliament into the next.”Then questioned on what level of new homes delivery would be reached by the next election, the Housing Secretary said: "You invite me to concede defeat on the 1.5 million homes target.“I refuse to. I am realistic about the challenges we face in meeting it.”Ms Rayner's predecessor Steve Reed was said to have previously confirmed to the committee that the Labour Government was looking at reforms to create “a fairer, more progressive” council tax system.Challenged on this, the Housing Secretary said: "A few months ago, there was a different prime minister and a different secretary of state."I'm telling you, as the Secretary of State today, that I am not working on any plans at the moment to change the council tax system, other than what has already been announced and changed.“We are obviously supporting people with the cost of living crisis, and that remains one of our key focuses as a department and as a Government.”When questioned on inconsistencies in council tax charges across the country under the current band system, she said her focus had been on reforming local government funding to support areas based on need.The Government has announced a new high value council tax surcharge.It would impose a new annual flat rate charge on residential property in England valued at £2 million or more.The measure is expected to generate between £400 and £430 million per year for the Treasury from 2028-29.When asked whether she would urge the Treasury to redistribute this money to areas that have “lost out” in the past, Ms Rayner said: "I recognise local government has been through hell and back over the last decade or so.“I recognise that, actually, if we want a devolution agenda, if we want to put power back in people’s hands, then local government is critical to that and needs fair funding.”Ms Rayner told the committee she did not accept the 1.5 million homes target needed to be readdressed, and that she was not working on plans to change the council tax system beyond what has already been announced.