Rishi Sunak to intervene in Sadiq Khan’s London housebuilding plan
Rishi Sunak is intervening in Sadiq Khan’s housing plan as he says not enough dwellings are built.
But the mayor of London has criticised the prime minister’s “disappointing and disingenuous claims” about the capital.
On Thursday, the government said Mr Khan has until the autumn to “look at opportunities to accelerate residential development on inner city brownfield industrial sites” or Housing Secretary Michael Gove will intervene directly.
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Downing Street criticised the mayor’s London Plan and wanted “to address issues such as single-story warehouses being prioritised over new homes on central London sites within a few minutes of tube stations”.
Mr Khan was quick to highlight his record on housebuilding, claiming that more homes had been completed under his leadership than at any time since the 1930s.
He pointed out progress had been to beat a target of starting 116,000 affordable homes in the capital between 2015 and 2023.
The government, meanwhile, claimed that “London’s own local housing plan says that 52,000 new homes are required – after the Mayor’s London Plan was not deemed credible to deliver the original 66,000 homes a year that he estimated to be needed”.
“Despite this, only around 30,000 have been built in recent years, and the latest indicator suggests only 21,000 new homes started development last year”.
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Mr Khan’s spokesperson said: “These disappointing and disingenuous claims appear to show a fundamental lack of understanding of housebuilding in London.
“The mayor delivered record numbers of affordable homes over the last six years, consistently exceeding government targets despite the impact of the pandemic and Brexit. This has included starting more council homes than at any time since the 1970s.
“The mayor’s London Plan was approved by the government in 2021 and the ministers should know that the housing figures included within it are reliant on sufficient government investment being made in infrastructure, particularly transport.”
Sunak jumping on Sadiq as he spies political win
In the aftermath of the Conservatives’ narrow win at the recent Uxbridge by-election, it was clear they had taken two key lessons from the result.
Tory MPs interviewed in the early hours said it was about showing what Labour in power was really like and that single issues, like ULEZ (the Ultra-Low Emission Zone) could be weaponised to win votes.
Less than a week later, it appears that the prime minister has wasted no time in applying what many in his party think could be the strategy that enables them to cling on to power at the next election.
Which is presumably why Rishi Sunak popped up on a London building site today to trash Sadiq Khan’s housebuilding record in the capital.
Focusing on the Labour mayor enables the prime minister to avoid his own party’s record which, assessed against almost any metric, is a disappointing one.
Their 300,000 homes a year pledge, established in 2017, has been oft ignored and at times watered down, with Housing Secretary Michael Gove last year downgrading it to “advisory”.
The party’s one serious attempt at meeting it with ambitious planning reforms and country-wide targets was met with a furious wave of opposition from its own MPs and council leaders, many determined to protect the picturesque Tory shires.
It was clear that approach had been abandoned this week when Mr Gove set out a new vision focused instead on cities, including a significant expansion of Cambridge – a scheme immediately condemned by the area’s Conservative MP.
Meanwhile, the most recent homelessness figures show record number of families living in temporary accommodation, including 131,000 children without a home.
Add to that the recent economic turmoil that has pushed up rents and mortgages to eye-watering levels and you get a toxic combination that underpins a dysfunctional and deteriorating housing market.
Rishi Sunak’s response? To point the finger at the London mayor and to say he will now step in to sort it out.
Given his government’s record across the rest of the country, Londoners may be forgiven for thinking this is anything more than electioneering.
Mr Sunak said: “We are on track to build 1 million new homes over this parliament, having already delivered over 2.2 million across the country since 2010.
“But the reality is that too few of these homes are being built in London, and for too many Londoners the dream of owning their own home is beyond reach.
“The mayor has failed to deliver the homes that London needs. This has driven up house prices and made it harder for families to get on the housing ladder in the first place.
“That is why we are stepping in today to boost house building and make homeownership a reality again for people across this great city.”
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In its plans, the government said it wanted to support a “Docklands 2.0”, which would see increased building in parts of east London like Thamesmead, Beckton and Silvertown.
It also said £150m for housebuilding will be passed onto London boroughs, bypassing the mayor’s Greater London Authority.
And another £200m will be spent on developing unused brownfield sites.
Global trade tensions triggered by US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff measures may come to an end with a potential deal with China as investors remain concerned about escalation from both sides.
Trump’s April 2 announcement of reciprocal import tariffs sent shockwaves through global equity and crypto markets. The measures include a 10% baseline tariff on all imported goods, effective April 5, with higher levies — such as a 34% tariff on Chinese imports — set to begin on April 9.
However, the tariff negotiations may only be “posturing” for the US to reach an agreement with China, according to Raoul Pal, founder and CEO of Global Macro Investor.
“In the end, almost all the other tariff negotiations and rhetoric are all about getting China to agree a deal,” Pal wrote in an April 8 X post, adding:
“That is the big prize and both China and the US understand it and need it. Everything else is negotiation posturing. China needs a weaker $ and the US needs tariffs.”
Source: Raoul Pal
“Also, the US is trying to shut down China tariff arbitrage using other channels such as Mexico or Vietnam,” Pal said.
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China retaliates with new tariffs
Considering China’s latest retaliatory measures, a resolution remains unlikely in the short term.
In response to US tariffs, China imposed a 34% tariff on all US imports effective April 10, media outlet Xinhua News reported on April 4. China’s foreign ministry also vowed to “fight till the end” against Trump’s tariffs, which it called “bullying” by the world’s largest economy.
China overtakes the US in global trade. Source: Econovis
China overtook the US in 2012 to become the world’s largest trading nation by the total value of exports and imports, surpassing $4 trillion in goods trade that year, according to The Guardian.
Crypto markets watch trade outcome closely
As the trade dispute continues to evolve, analysts say a potential agreement between the two global superpowers could serve as a key catalyst for recovery in digital asset markets.
Crypto markets have a 70% chance to bottom by June 2025 before recovering, Nansen analysts predicted.
Related: Crypto market bottom likely by June despite tariff fears: Finance Redefined
Investor appetite for risk assets such as Bitcoin will depend on the global tariff responses from other countries, according to Nicolai Sondergaard, a research analyst at Nansen.
“We have reached somewhat of a local bottom in regard to tariffs and the impact on prices,” the analyst said during Cointelegraph’s Chainreaction live show on X, adding:
“Trump came out guns blazing, and we’ve mostly seen the worst from the US side, so we’ll see if other countries are willing to drop some of the tariffs because it’s very likely the US will do the same.”
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A Nigerian court has reportedly delayed the country’s tax evasion case against Binance until April 30 to give time for Nigeria’s tax authority to respond to a request from the crypto exchange.
Reuters reported on April 7 that a lawyer for Binance, Chukwuka Ikwuazom, asked a court the same day to invalidate an order allowing for court documents to be served to the company via email.
Binance doesn’t have an office in Nigeria and Ikwuazom claimed the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) didn’t get court permission to serve court documents to Binance outside the country.
“On the whole the order for the substituted service as granted by the court on February 11, 2025 on Binance who is … registered under the laws of Cayman Islands and resident in Cayman Islands is improper and should be set aside,” he said.
FIRS sued Binance in February, claiming the exchange owed $2 billion in back taxes and should be made to pay $79.5 billion for damages to the local economy as its its operations allegedly destabilized the country’s currency, the naira, which Binance denies.
It also reportedly alleged that Binance is liable to pay corporate income tax in Nigeria, as it has a “significant economic presence” there, with FIRS requesting a court order for the exchange to pay income taxes for 2022 and 2023, plus a 10% annual penalty on unpaid amounts along with a nearly a 27% interest rate on the unpaid taxes.
Nigeria’s legal history with Binance
In February 2024, Nigeria arrested and detained Binance executives Tigran Gambaryan and Nadeem Anjarwalla on tax fraud and money laundering charges. The country dropped the tax charges against both in June and the remaining charge against Gambaryan in October.
Tigran Gambaryan (right) was seen in a September video struggling to walk into a courtroom in the Nigerian capital of Abuja. Source: X
Anjarwalla managed to slip his guards and escape Nigerian custody to Kenya in March last year and is apparently still at large.
Related: Binance exec shares details about release from Nigerian detention
Gambaryan, a US citizen, returned home in October after reports suggested his health had deteriorated during his detainment with reported cases of pneumonia, malaria and a herniated spinal disc that may need surgery.
Binance stopped its naira currency deposits and withdrawals in March 2024, effectively leaving the Nigerian market.
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