Sunak under pressure

RISHI Sunak has promised to work “night and day” to deliver, as he comes under pressure over the Conservatives’ dire performance in the local elections and critics turn on a failure to build sufficient houses.

The Prime Minister was yesterday trying to move on from the defeats that saw nearly 1,000 Tory councillors lose their jobs, as voters turned last week to Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens.

As the post-mortem was under way, former levelling up secretary Simon Clarke said Mr Sunak’s “major mistake” of dropping housebuilding had played a role in the poor performance.

Labour was considering putting higher taxes on foreign buyers of UK homes as the party seeks to pressure the Government on the housing crisis.

The Opposition was understood to be adapting policy to increase the 2% surcharge on stamp duty for overseas buyers and banning them purchasing more than 50% of homes in a development.