Sir James Cleverly hit out at London Mayor Sadiq Khan's housing record, as he also said "empty nesters" should be incentivised to downsize.The Conservative shadow housing secretary compared the 0.5 houses per 1,000 people built inside the south-east of England last year with the 2.5 houses per 1,000 people built outside the region over the same period.Sir James said: "(Mr) Khan's failure ends up by dumping that housing shortfall on rural Britain."He continued: "I never want to force anyone to le

Sir James Cleverly hit out at London Mayor Sadiq Khan's housing record, as he also said "empty nesters" should be incentivised to downsize.The Conservative shadow housing secretary compared the 0.5 houses per 1,000 people built inside the south-east of England last year with the 2.5 houses per 1,000 people built outside the region over the same period.Sir James said: "(Mr) Khan's failure ends up by dumping that housing shortfall on rural Britain."He continued: "I never want to force anyone to leave a home that they love but we should make it much easier for older couples to downsize without punishing them with ever more property tax, because encouraging downsizing frees up a whole chain of homes, helping the retirees and bigger families and smaller families and first time buyers all at the same time."That is just common sense, and that is what should underpin Conservative housing policy, common sense, easing the burden of regulation, getting stuff built, easing counterproductive taxati