PM vows to deliver as pressure rises over housebuilding
Rishi Sunak has promised to work ‘night and day’ to deliver, as he comes under pressure over the Conservatives’ dire performance in the local elections and critics turn on a failure to build sufficient houses.
The Prime Minister was yesterday trying to move on from the defeats that saw nearly 1,000 Tory councillors lose their jobs, as voters turned to Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens.
As the post-mortem was underway, former levelling up secretary Simon Clarke said Mr Sunak’s ‘major mistake’ of dropping housebuilding had played a role in the poor performance.
Labour was considering putting higher taxes on foreign buyers of UK homes as the party seeks to pressure the Government on the housing crisis.
The Opposition was understood to be adapting policy to increase the 2 per cent surcharge on stamp duty for overseas buyers and banning them purchasing more than 50 per cent of homes in a development.
They could also introduce a rule allowing first-time buyers first access to new developments if Sir Keir Starmer forms a government.
Mr Sunak declined to apologise to the hundreds of Tory councillors who had lost their jobs when asked about it.
Ten of those councillors were in Portsmouth and Havant – five on each council.
Instead, he said: ‘It’s always disappointing to lose hard-working Conservative councillors and I said that at the time.’
The Prime Minister insisted that delivering on his five priorities, which include cutting NHS waiting lists which he is announcing policies on this week, is what the public wants.