Sir Keir Starmer: “The dream of owning a home in Yorkshire has been shattered”

While campaigning in Selby ahead of next month’s by-election, Sir Keir told The Yorkshire Post he would build more houses to solve the renting and mortgage problems facing people.He would not, however, commit to bringing back schemes like Help-to-Buy to give prospective homeowners a boost in getting a deposit together.“We have to make sure there’s enough housing to make sure people can fulfil their dream, and it is a dream for many people, to own their own house,” the Labour leader said.Sir Keir took aim at Prime Minister Rishi Sunak labelling him as “weak” and that he “gave in to his own backbenchers” over building targets.The Conservative Party has a target of building 300,000 homes a year, but Sir Keir said Mr Sunak had “given up” on the pledge in Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) on Wednesday.Sir Keir continued: “House building is going to drop to the lowest level since the Second World War.“That is not just a statistic, that is going to hit families across this region whose dream of owning a home they can afford, and the security of owning their own home, is going to be shattered because of this government.”When asked if Labour would bring back a scheme like Help-to-Buy, Sir Keir wouldn’t be drawn on individual policy.“The first thing is we’ve got to build the houses,” he said.“The fact that there aren’t any houses to buy for young people and young families means that everybody is driven into the rental sector and the rent goes up.“This is a vicious cycle people are caught in and we’ve got to break out of that.“This has been 13 years of stagnation and there’s a general sense, I think, now that everything is broken and nothing is working properly.”Sir Keir also spoke to Labour supporters with his deputy Angela Rayner and Selby and Ainsty candidate Keir Mather.The Labour leader described Nigel Adams, who resigned as an MP following his omission from Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list, as “a disgrace” and told supporters Mr Mather would be a “fresh start” for the constituency.Meanwhile, Labour’s deputy leader described the conduct of Tory MPs who questioned the legitimacy of the Standards Committee report into Boris Johnson’s conduct as Prime Minister as “disgusting” considering the economic climate.“Nobody of this generation has gone through something like this,” she said.“Mortgages going up, rents going up, gas and electricity going up, food going up.”Mr Sunak has defended his record on housing and has insisted reducing inflation is the best way to ease the cost-of-living.At PMQs, he also accused Sir Keir and his shadow housing minister Lisa Nandy of being at odds over building houses on the green belt.“It’s classic Labour,” the Prime Minister said.“Saying one thing here, doing another thing elsewhere.“You simply can’t trust a word they say.”