Trevor Phillips caught Angela Rayner contradicting herself over the housing crisis and immigration in a tense interview this morning.
The deputy prime minister, who is also the housing secretary, was speaking to the media to promote Labour’spromise to build 1.5 million new homes over the course of this parliament.
On Sky News, Rayner said: “We can’t carry on like this. We’re not getting the development we need, we’re not getting the houses we need.
“We’ve got the eight times the average income for first-time buyers. People are priced out of getting a home. I’m determined to change it.”
Sky News presenter Phillips pointed out that while Rayner wants to add homes for 4.3 million people, Labour is also encouraging 2.5 million other people to the UK over the same period via immigration.
He said: “Are you content that more than five out of seven homes will go to immigrants?”
“That’s not the truth. That’s not the reality,” she replied.
But the presenter asked where this new influx of people are supposed to live.
Rayner said: “There’s plenty of housing in the UK, but the houses –”
Phillips hit back: “Hang on! You can’t on one hand say, ‘let’s build 1.5m houses’ and then say ‘there’s plenty of housing already’.”
She replied: “There is plenty of housing Trevor, but there’s not enough for the people who desperately need it.
“So the homes, especially under our social affordable housing, they will be there for people who desperately need them.”
He said: “This doesn’t quite make sense. You start the interview by telling me there’s a housing crisis.
“When I remind you that you have said yourself as a government we need 2.5 million migrants – some of them by the way are going to build this new housing – suddenly, there’s a lot of housing.
“Where are these people going to go?”
The cabinet minister said the previous government used migrants too much for building, and that there has not been enough focus on social housing.
Earlier in the interview, Phillips also noted that Rayner’s promises would still only work out to an extra nine homes per 1,000 people, adding: “Not very much is it?”
But she said: “We haven’t seen housebuilding like this since 1950s, after the Second World War.”
Rayner also pushed back when the presenter questioned how she intends to deal with environmental protections which prevent housebuilding.
She said: “We can’t have a situation where newts are more protected than people who desperately need housing and what we need is a process which says protect nature and wildlife – but not at the expense of us building the houses. We could do both.”
This new housebuilding pledge is part of PM Keir Starmer’s reset for the government.
Other “missions” include raising living standards in every part of the UK, ending hospital backlogs, recruiting 13,000 more “bobbies on the beat”, increasing the number of children in England who are “ready to learn” when they start school at 5, and putting the UK on track for at least 95% clean power by 2030.
