Nothing exposes the failure of a government quite like the cost of a mortgage. And the numbers released this week are brutal. The average two-year fixed mortgage rate has jumped from 4.83% on 2 March to 5.9% on 8 April — a rise of more than a full percentage point in just five weeks. For the average family remortgaging this spring, that is hundreds of pounds extra per month, every month, for years.

This is not a blip. This is Labour's economy, and it is squeezing working families harder than at any point in living memory.

What This Means for an Ordinary Family

Take a £250,000 mortgage — a modest figure in much of the country. At 4.83%, the monthly payment comes in at about £1,433. At 5.9%, it's £1,580. That's an extra £147 every single month, or nearly £1,800 a year. For families already drowning in council tax rises, frozen income tax thresholds, soaring energy bills, and grocery inflation, that's not a tightening of the belt — that's a choice between paying the mortgage and paying for food.

And remember: this is happening under a Labour government that told voters it would bring security, stability, and cost-of-living relief. Nineteen months in, and mortgage rates are climbing, not falling. Growth is flatlining. The pound is wobbling. Reeves's tax rises are choking off investment. Families who planned their finances on the hope of rate cuts are now staring at bills going the wrong way.

Why Rates Have Gone Up

The honest answer is that international investors have lost confidence in Britain's economic direction. When Rachel Reeves hit the country with a £75 billion tax raid — the largest single tax package in a generation — gilt yields rose. When the IMF warned that the UK had hit "peak taxation", markets noticed. When the OBR downgraded growth, again, markets priced it in. Higher gilt yields mean higher mortgage rates. It really is that simple.

Labour will blame anyone but themselves — the Bank of England, Donald Trump, global conditions, the weather. But the Bank of England has actually been cutting its base rate. It is the long end of the yield curve — the part that reflects confidence in the British government's competence — that has driven mortgage rates up. This is a confidence crisis. And it is home-grown.

Housing Ladder Pulled Up

For young people trying to buy their first home, the picture is even worse. The dream of ownership, already a stretch for the under-35s, is now slipping away altogether. Sales agreed rose 40% month-on-month in March — a brief burst of activity as buyers tried to complete before rates rose. That surge is now fading fast. Expect the next few months to see transactions collapse.

Meanwhile the North-South divide is widening. The North West saw asking prices rise 3.2% year-on-year, while the South East fell 0.8%. But regional averages hide the real pain: in towns and cities across Britain, ordinary first-time buyers are being priced out by a combination of stagnant wages, rising rates, and a planning system that still doesn't build enough homes where people actually want to live.

What Reform UK Would Do

Reform UK believes housing policy should start with one simple question: are we on the side of the family trying to own a home, or the interests that profit from the status quo? Our answer is the family. That means lower taxes so people have more to save for a deposit. It means slashing the mortgage approval red tape that drives costs up. It means building homes, for British families, in the places where they actually need to live — not dumping thousands more units a year into areas already under pressure from mass immigration.

It also means ending the absurd policy of funding asylum hotels with tens of billions of pounds of taxpayer money while young British couples cannot afford a starter home. The priorities of this country have become perverse, and Reform UK is the only party prepared to say it out loud.

Labour Owns This

The cost-of-living crisis didn't start with Labour, but Labour has made it worse. Tax rises, borrowing surges, and economic drift have pushed up mortgage rates, squeezed family budgets, and hollowed out the dream of home ownership. Twenty months ago voters were told change was coming. It has — but not the change they were promised.

Reform UK is the change that actually delivers.