Tories seize on 1.5m shortfall

Labour’s promise to build 1.5 million homes is back under pressure after new analysis said delivery is running well behind schedule. (propertywire.com) (fullfact.org) PropertyWire reported on April 26 that the government had delivered just over 300,000 homes in the first 18 months of this parliament, about a third below the pace needed. Full Fact, using official figures, said England added 275,600 net homes between July 9, 2024 and November 9, 2025. (propertywire.com) (fullfact.org) The target implies roughly 300,000 homes a year over five years. Official statistics published on November 20, 2025 showed 208,600 net additional dwellings in England in 2024-25, down 6% from the year before. (gov.uk 1) (gov.uk 2) That gap has given Conservatives and other critics an easy line of attack: Labour tied one of its central economic promises to a number that can be checked against annual housing data. Full Fact’s tracker now lists the pledge as “appears off track.” (fullfact.org) Ministers have argued the early years were always likely to be weak because Labour inherited a housing downturn and a planning system altered by the previous Conservative government. Housing minister Matthew Pennycook told MPs in December 2025 that progress was “always going to be slow in the early years of this Parliament.” (parallelparliament.co.uk) Labour’s case is that planning changes are supposed to shift output later, not immediately. The government said in March 2025 that the Office for Budget Responsibility expected housebuilding to reach 305,000 a year by 2029-30 after planning reforms. (gov.uk) (obr.uk) But that same Office for Budget Responsibility baseline pointed to cumulative net additions of under 1.3 million homes by 2029-30, short of Labour’s 1.5 million goal. That is why critics have focused less on the end-of-parliament aspiration and more on the missing homes already building up in the early numbers. (obr.uk) (socialhousing.co.uk) Industry reporting has tied the shortfall to labour shortages, higher material costs and planning bottlenecks. Those are the same constraints cited repeatedly in coverage questioning whether reforms alone can close the gap fast enough. (propertywire.com) (inews.co.uk) The next test is simple: Labour needs the annual numbers to turn sharply upward from the 2024-25 level of 208,600 if it wants the 1.5 million pledge to survive as more than a slogan. (gov.uk) (fullfact.org)