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![\"Rachel](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Labour-Chancellor-Rachel-Reeves-visits-housebuilding-construction-site--e1768225487622.jpg\")
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Labour has talked big on housing and planning reform, but the figures don\u2019t lie, writes Emma Revell<\/p>\n
As someone who spends a fair bit of time thinking and talking about our housing crisis, I\u2019m pretty unshockable. Lousy landlords, horrible housemates, bedrooms the size of postage stamps, \u2018well we just need rent control actually\u2019, I\u2019ve heard it all.<\/p>\n
But sometimes you come across a piece of data so bad you just have to stop and take it in.<\/p>\n
In the last financial year, just 4,170 new homes began construction in London. That is a 72 per cent reduction from the previous financial year.<\/p>\n
4,170.<\/p>\n
In a city with 9m people. In a city where London councils estimate 210,000 Londoners \u2013 including over 100,000 children \u2013 are homeless and living in temporary accommodation. Where over 300,000 households are on waiting lists for social housing. Where the average rent for a one-bedroom property is over \u00a31,300 a month in all central London areas, and over \u00a31,100 in all but three parts of outer London.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Every year since 1946, London has seen the completion of over 10,000 homes, according to my colleagues at the Centre for Policy Studies<\/a>. With fewer than half that number started, the consultancy Molior predicts that only 4,550 homes a year will complete construction in both 2027 and 2028.<\/p>\n London\u2019s numbers might be particularly egregious \u2013 this is likely to be the most challenging housebuilding period since the Second World War \u2013 but the capital is not alone. According to CPS analysis<\/a>, it turns out in 2024\/25 every English region saw a fall in housebuilding. And let\u2019s be honest, none of them were doing a great job the year before.<\/p>\n East Midlands, down 19.5 per cent. West Midlands, down 13.5 per cent. The North West, down 25.5 per cent. Overall, England\u2019s new housing starts were down 17 per cent \u2013 meaning 23,140 fewer homes were started than the year before. And each successive year of failure adds to the cumulative under-building that plagues the country, making fixing the housing crisis in its entirety feel like an impossibility.\u00a0<\/p>\n And readers will know all too well that failure to provide adequate housing has knock-on impacts far beyond just high housing costs, in particular here in London.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRead more<\/p>\n \t\t\tLondoners don\u2019t want Sadiq Khan to run for Mayor again<\/a><\/p>\n When housing is unaffordable in the capital, businesses struggle to hire workers who live close enough to come into the office without bookending each day with an arduous commute. If businesses can\u2019t expand, the wider economy suffers.<\/p>\n When parents \u2013 or wannabe parents \u2013 can\u2019t afford to get on the housing ladder until their mid-30s or can\u2019t afford that two- or three-bed until even later, they won\u2019t have as many children as they may otherwise have wanted to, or even any kids at all. The impact of a declining birth rate will be felt for decades to come, first through school closures \u2013 which we\u2019ve already started to see in some London boroughs \u2013 and then through fewer workers, meaning fewer taxpayers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Labour\u2019s failed housing revolution<\/p>\n Labour came into government with a clear focus on housebuilding<\/a>; in fact figures from Hansard show \u2018planning reform\u2019 was mentioned a record 520 times in Parliament in 2025.<\/p>\n It wouldn\u2019t be fair to suggest the government has done nothing to deliver on their promise of 1.5m homes by the end of this parliament. They just haven\u2019t done anywhere near enough. Rhetoric far exceeded reality.<\/p>\n True, London had an emergency package of measures announced in the autumn which will go some way to alleviate the particular difficulties around building in the capital. Rolling back Sadiq Khan\u2019s excessive and counterproductive affordability requirements should make it easier for developers to make a return on new sites. And the removal of costly dual aspect regulations which required architects to contort new developments into unsightly shapes to squeeze in additional windows was also welcome.<\/p>\n However, many of these measures were only temporary. And the government has yet to have the confidence to tackle the huge problems with the Building Safety Regulator (BSR), a relatively new quango which is imposing ludicrous delays on plans to build or renovate taller developments, even when those renovations would improve the quality of existing homes. The changes to the BSR that it has brought in are desperately short of what is needed.<\/p>\n