During his first appearance at the despatch box for Prime Minister’s Questions last week, Rishi Sunak claimed there have been a record number of new homes built in the last year.
Answering a question about protecting the green belt, he said: “We must protect our green belt and we are adopting a “brownfield first” strategy. I am pleased that we had a record number of new homes built in the last year, but it is important that we build those homes in the right places.”
This does not appear to be correct according to Full Fact. Mr Sunak’s claim is not supported by the most recent figures published by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), and while there are various different statistics published about the number of new homes, they couldn’t find any data which backs up Mr Sunak’s claim.
When Full Fact asked Number 10 what statistics Mr Sunak was referring to, an official pointed them to a range of house-building figures for England, but none of these substantiated his claim.
Number 10 has not responded to further queries.
