Pressed over whether the 1.5 million pledge was a hope or a guarantee, Reed told the BBC: “It’s what we’re going to do.
“We’ll do it by working in partnership with the developers and with the builders,” he said.
“My job is to get every barrier out of the way that is stopping that construction going ahead.”
Speaking during a visit to a housing development near Houghton Regis in Bedfordshire, Reed said he was going to come up with an “acceleration package” that would get planning applications approved more quickly and “spades in the ground”.
He added: “I don’t want the developers dragging their feet. They don’t want to drag their feet – it’s their business.
“They make money from going ahead with construction. I’m going to work in partnership with the developers but there will be sanctions if the building doesn’t go ahead at pace and at scale.”
This week the Home Builders Federation warned the sector was facing rising regulatory costs and taxes, external, “compounded by delays in processing planning applications”.
In Bedfordshire, Garry Dixon, who runs a construction company that works on smaller residential developments, said rising costs were a “massive” challenge.
“I would say three years ago you were getting bricks at 75p, 80p a brick and now they’re like £1.20 a brick,” he said. “It’s just huge, and that’s just one sector of the build.”
He said the government should put more money into training and apprenticeships to ensure the sector had the skills it needed, but that was not a “quick fix”.