HBF Statement: House building industry response to Labour's land banking myth accusation.

In advance of tonight's party political broadcast by the Labour party, that suggest house builders sit on land ready for development, please find following a statement from the Home Builders Federation.

"House builders completely reject the accusation that they hoard land that is capable of providing new homes . Three independent studies in the last decade, including most recently by the Office of Fair Trading, have all concluded house builders do not land bank. Further recent evidence supports this conclusion. In HBF’s most recently survey of the larger home builders, only 4% of plots with an implementable planning permissions were on sites where production had not yet started.

"The country faces a housing crisis that will take a collective effort to solve. It is unhelpful when political rhetoric centres on myths when the real challenge is how we increase housing supply. If we are to meet the new ambitious targets all parties are agreed are required, politicians need to work with the house building industry to address the constraints on housing supply.

"We will continue to try and present the evidence to policymakers in a balanced and objective way so that we can overcome political expediency and get to grips with the issues that people actually care about."