Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook has called the government’s plan to build 1.5 million homes in England before the end of Parliament “stretching but achievable'', and vowed to use ''full ministerial intervention powers'' to meet the deadline. Report by Gluszczykm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00I think they are achievable. They're very stretching. They will be difficult to achieve.
00:03We are asking more of councils. But we stood on a very clear manifesto to build a million
00:09and a half homes over those five years. Councils and councillors across the country would have
00:14been very aware of what we're asking and where it is. And what we're saying to them is we
00:18must have a planning system geared towards meeting housing need in full. That's a very
00:23clear difference of opinion between us and the Conservative Party. They put in place
00:27a planning system not geared towards meeting need in full. We've got to do that given the
00:31scale of the housing crisis we face. So it is asking more of councils. Those councils
00:35that share our ambition and genuinely need support, we'll look to target support at them.
00:40Those handful of recalcitrant councils out there that just say no, we're not going to
00:44accept building in our area. We're prepared to use our full ministerial intervention powers
00:48to ensure we get the houses built. We can. It's got to be a question of where the houses
00:52go, not whether they're built at all.