John Healey MP, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, responding to new statistics on net additions to the housing stock, said:

“These figures confirm that new housebuilding still hasn’t returned to the level it was before the global financial crisis, a decade on. Any increase in new housing is welcome but in any other area of public policy this record of failure would be cause for resignation, not celebration.

“Meanwhile genuinely affordable housebuilding has fallen dramatically in the last seven years. The number of new social rented homes is at the lowest level since records began and the number of new low-cost homes to buy has halved since 2010.

“After seven years of failure on housing, Ministers still have no plan to fix the housing crisis. The Government must now back Labour’s plan to build 100,000 new genuinely affordable homes a year, help first-time buyers and give renters new consumer rights including control on rents.”