Housing Secretary Steve Reed was left floundering today in a toe curling moment when he was asked how many homes Labour has actually built since coming to power.
Pressed again and again by GB News’ Camilla Tominey, Mr Reed simply couldn’t give a figure and at one point snapped at the host “I am not Wikipedia”.
Camilla refused to let the Labour MP off the hook and pushed him repeatedly for the number, which the minister still could not answer.
She pressed: “What? But what’s the number?”
Steve Reed could not answer the question
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GB NEWS
Mr Reed responded: “I can’t give you an exact figure. I know it’s really low I’m appalled by it as well but the fact is, the Conservatives didn’t get the applications through.”
Shocked, Camilla said: “Don’t tell me you don’t know. You’re the Housing Secretary. How many new homes have been built since Labour took power?”
He said: “I’m not Wikipedia. I’m here to talk to you about policy. Being Housing secretary doesn’t mean I know every single statistic going on in the entire housing sector. You only know it because it’s written in front of you.”
Outraged the GB News host said: “But I am not in charge of housing. How can my producer have this figure and you not have it?
Mr Reed fired back: “Well, because somebody researched it for you and given it to you, and someone hasn’t researched it for me and given it to me, what I know I need to do is build new homes.”
He added: “Because you’ve got a stat on a bit of paper that I haven’t got, it says nothing whatsoever.
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“I’m surprised that you’re trying to do a gotcha moment. So sad for your viewers because they probably like a sensible debate.”
Camilla replied: “This is silly, it’s not a gotcha for me to ask you as Housing Secretary how many new homes have been completed since Labour took power.”
The presenter eventually revealed the figure herself: 117,390 homes. She calculated that maintaining this pace would require 13 years to achieve the Government’s 1.5 million target by Parliament’s end.
Recent Government statistics reveal that housing development has reached unprecedented lows, with planning permissions for residential projects dropping to their worst levels on record.
Camilla Tominey pressed the Housing Secretary on new homes
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GB NEWS
Official figures indicate that merely 29,000 developments received council approval during the 12 months concluding in June 2025, marking a significant setback for the Government’s housing ambitions.
The data demonstrates that between April and June 2025, local authorities received 80,400 planning applications, representing a five per cent decline compared to the same period the previous year.
Planning departments processed 80,000 applications during this quarter, showing a one per cent decrease annually.