Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer went head to head in the first leadership debate of the general election campaign on Tuesday night, with an hour of trading blows on live TV.
With the Conservatives trailing Labour by large, double-digit leads in the opinion polls, Sunak was seen as going into the debate under more pressure to perform strongly.
The prime minister was on the offensive from the start, repeatedly accusing Labour of planning to increase taxes, and directly challenging Starmer on what he would do on certain policy issues such as immigration.
The cost of living was a topic of hot debate, while tax, immigration, and the NHS were among the main issues debated by the pair. But housing was notably ignored.
In response to the extremely limited housing policy discussion in Tuesday night’s TV debate, Rightmove’s property commentator, Tim Bannister, said: ‘At a time when house prices and rents are at record highs, it’s really disappointing to see that housing barely got a look in during last night’s debate. People need to hear much more about what long term solutions there could be to help more people to move, especially renters who weren’t mentioned at all.
“We hope to see housing get much more attention over the coming weeks. There are many complex issues affecting different groups of people that need to be discussed.”
Rightmove pushes for housing market focus ahead of tonight’s general election leaders’ debate
I was surprised in a TV poll of voters top ten concerns the NHS was number one but housing did not feature. I think it is a numbers game. Of the 65 million people in the country pretty much all of us have dealings with the NHS a few times a year and are aware of the short comings and everyone is concerned about the cost of living. With housing there are problems but the numbers who are homeless or who are living in poor accommodation is small compared to the overall population so is not actually a concern for most people. It is the same with social care, the situation is awful, but most people do not require it and only find out the difficulties if they or a family member need it.
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