Housing Today last month launched its A Fair Deal for Housing campaign, designed to get a government which had once promised to “build, build, build” its way back from the pandemic to recommit itself to its manifesto housing pledges. But that was before the fall of Boris Johnson as prime minister, the sacking of Michael Gove as housing secretary and the departure of the rest of his ministerial team, leaving Greg Clark overseeing a caretaker administration at Marsham Street.

All eyes are on what comes next. One man examining the scene closely with experience of delivering housing and planning policy in a Conservative-led government is Lib Dem peer, Lord Stunell. Speaking exclusively to Housing Today, he says our call for the government recommit to 300,000 homes-a-year is an essential pre-cursor to tackling a growing housing crisis.

“I think it’s really vital that the new government team, as soon as it’s got its feet under the table, starts to answer the questions that Housing Today’s campaign challenges the government to address,” he says.

But he’s worried the signs don’t look good for the next prime minister, with Liz Truss pledging to formally walk away from the government’s 2019 manifesto promise to build 300,000 homes a year. So, how worried is he at this moment of high risk for the residential development sector, and what is his prescription for building more homes?