Angela Rayner 'will miss Labour's housing target of 1.5MILLION homes'

By CLAIRE ELLICOT, WHITEHALL EDITOR FOR THE DAILY MAIL Published: 23:11, 30 July 2026 | Updated: 23:11, 30 July 2026 Labour will miss its housing target by 200,000 at the current rate of building, research has found. More than 1,000 new homes need to be built each day to meet the party's manifesto pledge. This would mean housebuilders must double the pace of construction to meet the 1.5 million target by 2029. Despite Labour's pledge, even in the best building year on record - 2020 - there were only 679 homes a day being built on average. The figures suggest that builders need to complete hundreds more homes each day and sustain that rate for the next three years to hit the target. Researchers at Land Value Calculator (LVC) said the Government had fallen behind its required building rate by 200,000 homes. 'No independent analyst currently thinks the Government is on track to hit its target,' a spokesman said. 'New-build starts have risen 43 per cent from their mid-2024 trough, which is the strongest argument that delivery accelerates from here. Angela Rayner, who has been reappointed as the Housing Secretary, recently admitted that the 1.5 million-home ambition set 'a really difficult stretch target' 'But at 130,170 a year, they remain a quarter below 2023 and below the current rate of completions.' For Andy Burnham to meet Labour's 2024 election manifesto pledge, the pace of building would need to increase to 367,700 homes a year, they said. Angela Rayner, who has been reappointed as the Housing Secretary, recently admitted that the 1.5 million-home ambition set 'a really difficult stretch target'. However, she said she was 'not dropping it' despite it being 'more challenging' than it was when it was made. Mr Burnham has also promised to launch the biggest council house-building drive in decades. A spokesman for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: 'This data does not take into account that we expect housebuilding to ramp up as more of our reforms start to take effect. 'These reforms include tackling blockages in the planning system, backing builders with a £16billion National Housing Bank and investing £39billion in social and affordable housing - and we have already seen housing starts up 15 per cent on last year.'