Emma Reynolds MP, Labour’s Shadow Housing Minister, commenting on new figures today showing a fall in the number of homes built over the last year and a near 10-year low in the number of affordable homes supplied in 2012-2013, said:

“This is yet more evidence of the Government’s failure to build the homes the country needs and failing to act on the cost-of-living crisis. With the market beginning to recover, the increase in home starts is welcome but the number of homes built over the past year is down 8 per cent compared with the year before and the supply of affordable homes is at a near 10 year low.

“David Cameron is presiding over the lowest levels of house building in peacetime since the 1920s. Home ownership remains out of reach of low and middle-income earners, rents are rising faster than wages and waiting lists grow ever longer.

“Labour is determined to tackle this housing crisis and will increase house building to at least 200,000 a year by 2020. Ed Balls is announcing today that a Labour-run Treasury will make house building a priority, including backing the building of a new generation of new towns and garden cities with financial guarantees.”