I grew up in a council house, so I know first-hand the security a good home gives a family: a safe place and a stable foundation from which to build a life. That is why the Government’s 1.5 million homes target matters well beyond Westminster.

Angela Rayner deserves credit for acknowledging the ‘slim chance’ of completing 1.5 million homes within this five-year Parliament. That is not lowering ambition; it is the right starting point for an honest discussion about what delivery will take.

Keeping the target gives the government a clear objective and enables councils, providers, developers, lenders and the supply chain to plan for the scale of demand. But the starting point is challenging: NHBC registered 29,162 new homes in the second quarter of 2026, four percent fewer than a year earlier. Closing that gap will require sustained demand, investment and confidence.

That is why 300,000 homes a year should not be treated as a five-year sprint. It is a level Britain needs to reach and sustain for at least a decade. Almost 180,000 children are growing up in temporary accommodation, and a problem of this depth will not be solved within one parliamentary term.

The ten-year, £39 billion Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP) provides an important foundation. Nearly £10 billion has been allocated to 33 strategic partners to support more than 70,000 homes across England outside London, around 60 per cent for Social Rent. The sector is already responding to that certainty: early indications from NHBC’s internal data show an increase in registrations for Buildmark Choice, our warranty and insurance cover predominantly for social and affordable housing.

Long-term certainty will give councils, housing associations, housebuilders, contractors, manufacturers and investors a firmer basis on which to invest, recruit, collaborate and increase delivery.

That certainty should help us learn from earlier periods of rapid growth. As NHBC marks 90 years of raising standards in housebuilding, our experience and our Foundation research show that higher build volumes have historically coincided with pressure on construction quality. The lesson is not that greater output inevitably means lower standards, but that 300,000 homes cannot be reached simply by asking the existing system to work faster.

Making that ambition credible means drawing lessons from the past while preparing for the future. Historically, Britain has not sustained housing delivery at anything like this scale through private development alone: councils were a central part of the periods when significantly more homes were built. If we are serious about returning to those levels, local authorities must again have the confidence, capacity and long-term certainty to build homes directly.

At the same time, we cannot recreate the past. Reaching 300,000 homes a year while protecting quality will require the sector to embrace modern methods of construction (MMC) at scale – using offsite manufacture and more standardised processes to improve productivity, consistency and pace, while helping to ease pressure from skills shortages.

Instead, volume and quality must rise together, with new homes that are safe, efficient, built right first time and suited to the people who live in them. NHBC Foundation’s research calls for an industry-wide ambition of defect-free homes, backed by investment in skills and better coordination of regulatory change.

Higher output must be matched by clear standards, skilled people, evidence from completed homes and sensible implementation timetables, building confidence among residents, investors and Government. A ten-year horizon makes delivery at this scale more credible by allowing providers and builders to build capacity, carry lessons between developments and give the supply chain confidence to invest in people, technology and manufacturing. 

Higher output must be matched by clear standards, skilled people, evidence from completed homes and sensible implementation timetables, building confidence among residents, investors and Government.

Delivering at scale without compromising quality depends on tackling the construction skills shortage. We must expand the workforce, deepen technical capability and ensure people throughout the build have the competence to deliver consistently high standards.

A stable pipeline towards 300,000 homes gives employers and training providers confidence to invest in apprenticeships and upskilling. NHBC is playing a leading role supporting this through its £100 million investment in multi-skill training hubs.

As Labour gathers in Liverpool, Angela Rayner’s honesty about the five-year timetable should strengthen, not weaken, the case for sustained ambition. The 1.5 million target may be difficult to reach, but the need remains. We can be realistic about the short-term while being resolute about the decade ahead. 

A clear target keeps housing near the top of the national agenda. The answer to a difficult five-year deadline is not to lower our sights, but to build the certainty, skills and capacity needed to reach 300,000 homes a year and sustain it.

Sustaining that level for a decade would deliver millions more homes, strengthen the supply chain and support investment in skills and innovation. Most importantly, it would give many more families the security and opportunity that a good home gave mine.

For the 180,000 children growing up in temporary accommodation, this is not an abstract debate about targets or timetables. It is about a permanent home and a stable foundation where they can build a future. The task now is to keep 300,000 homes a year firmly in our sights and treat it not as a single-Parliament promise, but as a ten-year national mission.

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