Keir Starmer refuses to make firm commitments on these three key issues

With Labour leading the Conservatives by 18 points in the latest YouGov voting intention poll, Sir Keir Starmer would appear to be a prime minister in waiting.

And with about a year to go before the next general election, the Labour leader appeared on the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme to share his vision for government.

Yet when asked about three key issues in a set of quick-fire questions from Kuenssberg, Starmer would not make any firm commitments.

Here is what he refused to discuss in detail.

1. Housing benefits

Housing benefits have been frozen since 2020 while rents has gone up. Would Starmer, therefore, unfreeze?

He didn't answer the question.

"We will set that out closer to the election," he said. "I am not committing to that here, I'm not writing our manifesto here."

2. Inflation

The government's inflation target for the Bank of England is 2%, with the current rate more than four times this at 8.7% – driving the cost of living crisis.

Some economists have argued altering target inflation to a higher level of 4%, for example, would ease the pressure on banks, though Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has said he wants it to remain at 2%.

When asked if changing the target would be something he would consider as PM, Starmer refused to commit.

Watch: Sir Keir Starmer promises fiscal responsibility under a Labour government

"Again, that’s something for us to address closer to the election," he said. "We've got probably two, maybe three, fiscal events before the election. We need to wait until we see what the state of the economy is.

"I'm not making policy in the studio here. As you would expect, wait until all the fiscal events before the election are there and clear and then we will be absolutely transparent about what we will do."

3. House building

According to the Centre for Cities think-tank, Britain has a backlog of 4.3 million homes missing from the housing market.

Starmer was asked if he would commit to building one million homes a year, but refused to do so.

"I've got a massive ambition when it comes to houses. I'm not going to put an arbitrary figure on it but we need hundreds of thousands more houses. I don't shy away from that.

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"The inhibitor there is the planning regulations and this government is not going to do anything about the planning regulations.

"We will do something about them and that will get house building going and that will be doubly important: one for the aspirations of so many individuals, young people and their families – the security of owning your own home really matters – but also it's very, very good for the economy to build houses, so we're absolutely determined to do that."

'Spot the difference'

It comes as Starmer is under pressure from unions, with the influential Mick Lynch, general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT), even saying people cannot "spot the difference" between Starmer's Labour and Rishi Sunak's Conservative government.

Lynch told Sky's Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme: "It's a shame that Labour and others can't show that they're distinct from the kind of consensus that's got us into this trouble where working people are struggling, the cost of living crisis seems to be ignored by the political class to certain extent.

"I don't think Labour’s doing enough.

"But at the minute I think Keir Starmer and his team have got to show some clear waters between... themselves and the Conservatives.

"And at the minute, many people can't spot the difference and that's a shame for somebody who's probably as talented as Keir Starmer is.

"He's got to show that he's on the side of working people and progressive politics, and I don't think we're seeing that."