‘Get Britain building again’: Reeves unveils Labour govt’s growth plan

WE SAID WE WOULD GRASP THE NETTLE OF PLANNING REFORM AND WE’RE DOING SO RACHEL REEVES,

UK CHANCELLOR

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, in her first major speech on Monday, vowed to “get Britain building again,” as she unveiled a slew of planning reforms including restoring mandatory local housing targets ditched by the previous Conservative government and ending an effective ban on onshore wind farms.

As the party tries to ride the momentum of its landslide UK election win last week in a dash for economic growth, Reeves also vowed to overhaul the National Planning Policy Framework by the end of the month, and a relaxation of planning restrictions on less attractive parts of the so-called green belt, as part of a housebuilding overhaul overseen by Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner.

“What we want is for infrastructure to be built, housing to be built, the energy system to be more sustainable,” Reeves’s deputy, Darren Jones, said on BBC TV on Monday. “Our key focus is on speeding up the planning system.” Reeves’s plan is based on crowding in billions of pounds of private investment by creating new financial instruments to stimulate demand from institutional investors, Bloomberg reported before the election.

The focus on private funds harks back to the last Labour government in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when private finance initiatives and public-private partnerships were expanded under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

“We said we would grasp the nettle of planning reform and we’re doing so,” Reeves said in her speech in London. “Be in no doubt we are going to get Britain building again, we are going to get Britain’s economy growing again and there is no time to waste.”

Labour leader Keir Starmer has said lifting growth would mean his government wouldn’t have to hike taxes or cut public spending to balance the books. To be sure, economists doubt Labour will be able to do it quickly enough to avoid difficult decisions on tax and spending in their first budget in the autumn, where they’re forecast to face a £20 billion ($26 billion) fiscal hole.

Labour’s core promise was to stimulate growth and investment in order to ease the strain on the country’s tightened public finances. “We want investors to come alongside that government money,” Starmer had said before the July 4 election.

Former governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney has been leading a task force advising Reeves on the creation of a national wealth fund. The group includes Aviva CEO Amanda Blanc and Barclays chief executive CS Venkatakrishnan, and will report its findings on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the matter. Carney is the chair of Bloomberg ’s board.some developers say the only solution to Britain’s housing shortage is to build homes on the green belt, strips of countryside surrounding villages, towns and cities where building is prohibited.

The concept was first introduced in London in 1938, before later expanding across the UK in a bid to contain urban sprawl after a postwar development boom. The green belt now covers 13 per cent of England's land, according to Centre for Cities.

“Nowhere is decisive reform needed more urgently than in the case of our planning system,” said Reeves.