Secretary of State Angela Rayner sets out Labour strategy in King’s Speech debate on Planning, the Green Belt and Rural Affairs
Last Friday (19th July), the Secretary of State for the newly named Housing, Communities and Local Government Ministry, Angela Rayner, spoke in Parliament on Planning, the Green Belt and Rural Affairs in the King’s Speech debate.
Rayner sought to set out the government’s plans for meeting the housing need of the next five years and outlined how they would be doing this and what they had already started on, echoing many of the promises and commitments Labour has made over the past year.
Key points made include:
- The Secretary of State has already created ‘a new taskforce to accelerate progress on stalled housing sites in [the UK], beginning with four that alone could deliver more than 14,000 of the homes that Britain so desperately needs’.
- The government’s aim ‘is not to build big, but to build well. [The government] will work with local government to plan new housing in the best possible places, with the infrastructure, public services and green spaces they need’.
- Angela wants to see ‘more local plans, and more engagement with local leaders, so that we can build the houses that people want in their areas, working together with them.’
- Angela stated ‘our first port of call will be brownfield land. Previously used land will be developed first wherever possible and those sites will be fast-tracked, but brownfield development alone will not meet the country’s increasing urgent need’.
- Further to that point, Rayner highlighted they will be releasing ‘lower-quality grey-belt sites, disused car parks and garages, and ugly wasteland to meet the needs of 2024’ with developments guided by their ‘Golden Rules’.
- Government ‘will unveil the next generation of new towns and will learn the lessons of the past to create safe and beautiful homes and the sustainable green communities of the future’.
- Government will ‘work with local leaders to ensure that [new towns] meet our gold standard of having 40% genuinely affordable housing, with homes for social rent a priority’.
- Rayner stated clearly that she will ‘reverse the damaging changes that the previous Government made’ to the NPPF last year and produce an updated NPPF ‘by the end of this month’. (July)
- The government will reform ‘compulsory purchase [and] will support land assembly for development in the public interest’, unblocking ‘new grid connections, roads, railways and reservoirs’.
The Secretary of State’s speech reiterates many of the commitments Labour has made previously but she now has the authority to enact the change the party has promised; she has also repeated many of the points made by Chancellor Rachel Reeves, earlier this month, a point the Shadow Secretary of State, Kemi Badenoch, was more than happy to point out in her response to Rayner, referencing possible oversight by the Treasury on planning matters.
What we can now look forward to is the key content of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and announcements outlining the reversal of changes to the NPPF due by the end of the month.
Politics is 10% policy and 90% implementation. The key for Labour will be to deliver and implement where the Conservatives clearly failed. Political courage is needed!
If you would like to read the full transcript of Angela Rayner’s speech, click here.
