Treasury Secretary Rachel Reeves Renews Homebuilding Targets

11 minutes ago

Faisal Islam & Daniel Thomas, BBC News

Does the Prime Minister consider himself a vassal?

Rachel Reeves has announced she will reintroduce mandatory housebuilding targets as part of a wide-ranging plan to boost the UK economy.

In her first speech as Chancellor, she pledged to overhaul Britain's planning restrictions to speed up the nation's infrastructure projects and end an effective ban on onshore wind farms.

Mrs Reeves said the government would make “tough, difficult choices” to get the economy back on track, adding that Britain had been lagging behind other developed countries for years.

She confirmed Labour planned to build 1.5 million homes in England during this parliament but said this was not a “green light” for any type of housing development.

“The question is not whether we want to grow, but how strong our resolve is. How prepared are we to make hard choices and stand up to the establishment?” she said.

“The story of the last 14 years has been a refusal to take the tough, responsible decisions that are required. This government will be different and there is no time to waste.”

Ms Reeves, a former Bank of England economist, was appointed chancellor of the exchequer on Friday after Labour's landslide election victory.

She and her team spent the weekend preparing a speech to business leaders and investors who have held back on investing in the UK in recent years due to political turmoil following Brexit and the Leeds Trust's small budget.

Her plans are expected to see hundreds of billions of pounds invested in green industries and homebuilding.

Speaking to business leaders at the Treasury, Mr Reeves said planning decisions on major UK infrastructure projects would be made nationally rather than regionally to avoid vital projects being bogged down in years of bureaucracy.

The new government also said it would recruit additional planning officers to speed up the planning process and mandatory housing targets would be restored.

But Mr Reeves said he would build a “good mix” of affordable and social rented homes.

“The deputy prime minister will take an interventionist approach to ensuring that we have the housing mix that our country and our people need,” she said.

She said as part of its plan to overhaul planning rules, Labor would review green belt boundaries to prioritise brownfield and so-called “grey belt” land – areas of lower quality within the green belt.

The government will also ask the transport and energy secretaries to prioritise decisions on “infrastructure projects that have been pending for too long”.

Ms Reeves said the government would set new policy intentions for critical infrastructure in due course.

“I know there will be people who oppose this,” Mr Reeves said.

“I’m not naive about that, and we have to recognize that there will always be trade-offs. Any development can impact the environment, put pressure on services, and generate local opposition, but we will not capitulate to the status quo by always saying ‘no’ to the existence of trade-offs.”

Supporters of mandatory housing targets say they are necessary to force local governments to build the number of homes they need.

But opponents argue that mandatory approaches have been tried and failed for decades and risk forcing development on undeveloped land against the will of local residents.

Boris Johnson's Conservative government set a housebuilding target for 2019, but it was scrapped by Rishi Sunak at the end of 2022 after opposition from Conservative members.

Roger Motlock, chief executive of rural charity CPRE, said building on greenbelts was not the answer.

“The idea that the green belt is untouched [under] “The previous government said that was not true. Since 2009, about 6,000 to 10,000 houses have been built every year on undeveloped land within the greenbelt,” he said.

“What they create are communities that are largely car-dependent, that ravage greenbelts and provide nothing for the people who live there.”

Ms Reeves and new Prime Minister Keir Starmer have pledged to boost economic growth by increasing spending on public services, but have also pledged not to raise income tax, national insurance contributions or value-added tax.

In her speech, Ms Reeves ordered an assessment of the state of the nation's finances and said she would present the findings before Congress' summer recess ahead of a full budget release later this year.

She has also tried to attract investment by promising stability to investors who may have avoided Britain in recent years.

“After 14 years, Britain has a stable government. A government that respects business, works with business and is open to business,” she said.

“In an uncertain world, Britain is a great place to do business.”

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