Angela Rayner has denied claims that she threatened to quit over Labour’s target to build 1.5 million new homes in five years.
In an updated biography of Sir Keir Starmer, titled Red Flag, the deputy prime minister and housing secretary, is said to have been on the brink of quitting over the “impossible” target set by the prime minister Sir Kier Starmer.
The updated version of the book by Lord Ashcroft, the Tory peer and billionaire businessman, also claims that it was only an intervention by Sir Tony Blair, the former prime minister, that persuaded to her stay.
In October 2023, Sir Keir announced his party’s target to build 1.5 million homes within five years of Labour taking office – a key feature in the party’s manifesto for last year’s general election, which pledged to “get Britain building again”.
In Red Flag, Lord Ashcroft claims Rayner threatened to quit over what is described as the “impossible” goal. However, it is not clear when this is said to have happened.
As first reported by The Mail on Sunday and later The Telegraph, the Tory peer wrote: “She is still prone to stirring up trouble… one occasion she threatened to resign because she felt she’d been set the impossible target of Labour building 1.5 million new homes.
“It took a call from Tony Blair to talk her down – which, incidentally, tells you how important Blair is to the Starmer project.”
A source close to Rayner told The Mail: “We do not recognise the claims made. Angela is proud to be serving as deputy prime minister in Keir’s cabinet and delivering on Labour’s crystal clear commitment to build 1.5 million homes as part of our Plan for Change.”
Labour sources suggested that Rayner’s concerns about the goal were justified, with one telling The Mail: “The fact is we don’t have enough bricks and there isn’t enough water to supply these houses.”
A Labour MP told the newspaper: “I think Rayner realised a while ago that the 1.5 million new homes target is undeliverable. But now the penny’s dropped for Angie’s team that she was set up to fail on this all along.”
Earlier this year, Rayner admitted that she and the prime minister “don’t agree on everything” but insisted he wanted to do his best for the country.
Who have thought, sowing the seeds of doubt on the Labour manifesto, are they going to actually achieve anything other than kill the property dept.
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The only land where 1.5m homes can be possibly built is now mostly farmland and hence why Labour are trying to fleece oops sorry I mean price out farmers with increasing incentives for foreign imports instead of home grown produce. And these areas of land are located near beautiful towns and villages. Just imagine living in a picturesque farmhouse for years surrounded by stunning landscapes only to see a load of cheap fabricated houses being built next door and housed by Labour subsidised buyers and tenants. Is it any wonder why we are seeing some beautiful houses in Surrey and Kent that have been in families for generations now being put on the market?
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You act like building houses for people to live in is less important than conserving one farmer’s picturesque view.
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Angela Raynor has been handed a poisoned chalice. She can’t force housing providers to build housing, they are not under state control. There is plenty of land already with planning permission that is not getting built on. No point in giving up more green belt. The developers will just grab it and still not build. Developers don’t want to help with the housing crisis if it is going to cost them lost revenue. Building costs spiral, wages stagnate and the plain fact is that many people cannot afford a so called affordable home even if it were available. So developers concentrate on up market homes for wealthy people.
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Also they are not dealing with the underlying issues of newbuilds being built like rabbit hutches, they are not built to last and riddled with defects. Developers are allowed to build using SPVs and then disappear to a tropical island with our money. There is no recourse under any voluntary schemes. 10 year guarantees are not worth the paper they are printed on – the insurers pass the buck to the developer and the poor home owner who has bought in good faith goes around in circles trying to get justice. Sit on that Angela Rayner. What is the point of building 1.5 million poorly built new homes? You will have this continual cycle of handing over money to registered housing providers who do not do adequate due diligence checks and then end up fleecing leaseholders for estate service charges and repairs to homes that they ‘part own’. Worse still, if they are social rented stock, these guys have no money to fix and therefore we end up with more slums.
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It also totally amazes me that they bandy about targets with no thought to who is going to build them, what sort of properties we need and where. What is the point in building thousands of executive homes on green belt (builders will make a greater profit) when we need terraced houses, bungalows and retirement properties in central locations – in our area no thought has been given to infrastructure and we now have gridlocked roads, waiting lists for doctors/dentists/vets/schools etc etc etc and still more houses going up.
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