The Conservative MP called on “everybody to be building across the board” to tackle the housing crisis crippling the country and claimed his Government delivered 222,000 new homes in 2018. But when asked by LBC host Iain Dale how many of those were social housing, he responded: “There will be a mixture within that.” Liberal Democrat Wera Hobhouse, on the line, insisted it was just 6,000 but the Housing Secretary admitted: “I haven’t got the specific breakdown of the numbers.”

The confession shocked Mr Dale who blasted the Tory MP: “James, you are Secretary of State for Housing. Should you not know how many of those 222,000 were social housing?”

In an attempt to recover from the awkward situation, Mr Brokenshire responded: “I can tell you the trajectory in terms of our delivery of affordable homes.

“It’s a discount to the rent and therefore you have affordable homes and homes for social rent.

“We have an intent to build 250,000 affordable homes through our £9 billion Affordable Homes Programme.

I’m astonished that you don’t know the figures

Iain Dale

“But also, how on councils we’ve taken off the borrowing restrictions that were there to actually build more council homes.”

Asked again to come up with a number of council homes built in the last 12 months, he replied: “We delivered more council homes in the last number of years than Labour did under their 13 years.”

Dismayed, Mr Dale added: “I’m astonished that you don’t know the figures.

“Apart from Brexit, this is the most important government policy and you’re sitting there and you can’t tell me the figures for council house builds or even affordable housing out of the 222,000.

“I think that’s shocking.”

In January, a report by housing charity Shelter revealed an additional three million social homes are needed to solve the housing crisis.

The report, commissioned in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster, urged minister to invest £124 billion in a 20-year housebuilding programme.

The proposal calls for 1.17 million homes for younger families who cannot afford to buy, 690,000 homes for private renters struggling with the high cost of renting and 1.27 million homes for those in greatest housing need.

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