Sam Richards is CEO of Britain Remade.
No government in modern British political history has been elected on such a clear mandate to deliver planning reform. Labour did not shy away from it in the campaign; they did not bury it deep in the manifesto, cloaked in opaque language designed to create escape routes out of the pledge once in power.
Sir Keir Starmer explicitly said that his government would back “the builders not the blockers”, that he would “bulldoze through the planning system.”
It’s clear why they made it so central to their pitch. Britain spends more per head on housing than any other European country, even though our homes are older, colder, and smaller. Our industrial energy costs are amongst the highest in Europe. High speed rail costs ten times more to build in England than in France.
All of these problems flow from a broken planning regime, which 14 years of Conservative Government was unable to reform.
Yet building new homes, let alone large infrastructure projects, takes time, even with a functioning planning system. If Labour want to preserve their large but shallow majority, they will need to deliver by the end of the Parliament; and that means delivering planning reform now.
In her first speech as Chancellor, Rachel Reeves made a strong start, with a down payment on Labour’s campaign rhetoric.
Ukraine has managed to build 12 times more onshore wind since Vladimir Putin’s invasion than we have in England – thanks to the de facto planning ban introduced nnine years ago by David Cameron. The quick lifting of the ban – and the pledge to treat onshore wind the same as other energy sources – is a vital first step to unleashing the pent up private sector investment and allowing them to build one of the cheapest new sources of energy.
Using call-in powers to overrule NIMBY local authorities and approve growth-boosting projects is another positive first step. It’s good that Angela Rayner has called in two major data centre investments; Ed Miliband now needs to be equally bold and immediately approve the five nationally-significant solar farm projects waiting for a decision.
Sam Dumitriu, Britain Remade’s head of policy, has set out the long list of oven-ready planning reforms – not least those set out in my own Government Review of statutory consultees, as yet unpublished but sat on the desk of the new Secretary of State.
Yet more fundamental reform is needed. On energy, Labour should look at quickly creating new clean energy zones – as already exist in Spain – to fast-track building renewables and new nuclear. Rewiring habitats regulations (he implementation of which has blocked hundreds of thousands of homes in southern England while failing to protect nature) will also be crucial for both clean energy and housebuilding.
More reform is also needed to environmental impact assessments and judicial review. Environmental statements regularly run to tens of thousands of pages for clean energy projects, while legal challenges (often with capped costs) can delay projects by years, creating significant uncertainty.
Without addressing these two areas, the Government will never be able to slash the mountains of paperwork that makes building anything here slower and more expensive than nearly anywhere else in the world.
None of this will be as easy as the first steps announced yesterday. Yet if the new Government is successful, the results – lower energy bills, more affordable housing, better transport – will be rewarded by voters.
The Conservative Party will then have a choice. It can follow the advice of MPs like Gavin Williamson, and reflexively try to block any new development while offering dubious warnings of Labour concreting over the green belt.
Or it can realise that there is no path to reconnecting with working age voters that does not involve making it easier to build new homes that they want to buy, new clean energy to cut bills and tackle climate change, and new transport links to help get people to work and to see friends and family.
Labour has much deeper reforms to deliver if it really wants to deliver sustained growth. But they have made a promising start, and confirmed that planning will be one of the defining issues of this new Parliament. How the Conservative Party responds will determine whether it is ready to win again in 2029.
Sam Richards is CEO of Britain Remade.
No government in modern British political history has been elected on such a clear mandate to deliver planning reform. Labour did not shy away from it in the campaign; they did not bury it deep in the manifesto, cloaked in opaque language designed to create escape routes out of the pledge once in power.
Sir Keir Starmer explicitly said that his government would back “the builders not the blockers”, that he would “bulldoze through the planning system.”
It’s clear why they made it so central to their pitch. Britain spends more per head on housing than any other European country, even though our homes are older, colder, and smaller. Our industrial energy costs are amongst the highest in Europe. High speed rail costs ten times more to build in England than in France.
All of these problems flow from a broken planning regime, which 14 years of Conservative Government was unable to reform.
Yet building new homes, let alone large infrastructure projects, takes time, even with a functioning planning system. If Labour want to preserve their large but shallow majority, they will need to deliver by the end of the Parliament; and that means delivering planning reform now.
In her first speech as Chancellor, Rachel Reeves made a strong start, with a down payment on Labour’s campaign rhetoric.
Ukraine has managed to build 12 times more onshore wind since Vladimir Putin’s invasion than we have in England – thanks to the de facto planning ban introduced nnine years ago by David Cameron. The quick lifting of the ban – and the pledge to treat onshore wind the same as other energy sources – is a vital first step to unleashing the pent up private sector investment and allowing them to build one of the cheapest new sources of energy.
Using call-in powers to overrule NIMBY local authorities and approve growth-boosting projects is another positive first step. It’s good that Angela Rayner has called in two major data centre investments; Ed Miliband now needs to be equally bold and immediately approve the five nationally-significant solar farm projects waiting for a decision.
Sam Dumitriu, Britain Remade’s head of policy, has set out the long list of oven-ready planning reforms – not least those set out in my own Government Review of statutory consultees, as yet unpublished but sat on the desk of the new Secretary of State.
Yet more fundamental reform is needed. On energy, Labour should look at quickly creating new clean energy zones – as already exist in Spain – to fast-track building renewables and new nuclear. Rewiring habitats regulations (he implementation of which has blocked hundreds of thousands of homes in southern England while failing to protect nature) will also be crucial for both clean energy and housebuilding.
More reform is also needed to environmental impact assessments and judicial review. Environmental statements regularly run to tens of thousands of pages for clean energy projects, while legal challenges (often with capped costs) can delay projects by years, creating significant uncertainty.
Without addressing these two areas, the Government will never be able to slash the mountains of paperwork that makes building anything here slower and more expensive than nearly anywhere else in the world.
None of this will be as easy as the first steps announced yesterday. Yet if the new Government is successful, the results – lower energy bills, more affordable housing, better transport – will be rewarded by voters.
The Conservative Party will then have a choice. It can follow the advice of MPs like Gavin Williamson, and reflexively try to block any new development while offering dubious warnings of Labour concreting over the green belt.
Or it can realise that there is no path to reconnecting with working age voters that does not involve making it easier to build new homes that they want to buy, new clean energy to cut bills and tackle climate change, and new transport links to help get people to work and to see friends and family.
Labour has much deeper reforms to deliver if it really wants to deliver sustained growth. But they have made a promising start, and confirmed that planning will be one of the defining issues of this new Parliament. How the Conservative Party responds will determine whether it is ready to win again in 2029.