Tory Former Housing Minister Has Joined Pro-Building Pressure Group Taking On NIMBYs

Conservative MP Brandon Lewis and Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh have joined housing campaign group PricedOut as Parliamentary Champions as they urge the Government to build more homes in order to fix the housing crisis.

Lewis, Conservative MP for Great Yarmouth, and a former housing minister, has consistently called for Government to build more homes and reform the planning system as a backbench MP. He said he was delighted to join PricedOut alongside McDonagh who he claimed had been an “excellent champion of Green Belt reform”.

“The housing crisis is the single biggest issue facing Britain – and the only way we're going to fix it is by actually putting spades and the ground and building more homes."

For decades Governments of all stripes have failed to build enough houses in the UK. Research from Centre for Cities has suggested Britain has a deficit of 4.3million homes.

Between January 2005 and October 2023, the average house price has increased from £150,663 to £284,950, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The median house price in London has continued to outstrip the average property price across the country. A home in the capital remains the most expensive of any region in the UK, with an average price of £516,000 in October 2023. In England, excluding London, the average age of a first time buyer has risen from 30.6 years old in 2005 to 33 in 2023, according to Statista, a data website. It also found over the same period that the average age of a first time buyer in the capital increased from 32 to 35.3.

McDonagh, Labour MP for Mitcham and Morden, has for years called for more housing to be build on the Green Belt. She has previously said it has prevented developers and previous Governments from