Rachel Reeves to bring back house-building targets

Rachel Reeves will reinstate compulsory house-building targets as part of an overhaul of Britain’s planning rules.

In her first major speech as Chancellor on Monday, she will confirm that Labour will overturn Michael Gove’s decision to water down planning targets.

The announcement will raise fears that Labour will push councils to build on green belt land to help it meet its promise of building 1.5 million new homes over the next five years.

Speaking to business leaders in the Treasury, Ms Reeves will promise moves to speed up the construction of key infrastructure, and to attract private investment.

She will argue that changing the planning system is the sort of tough decision required to “fix the foundations of Britain’s economy”.

“Last week, the British people voted for change,” she will say. “And over the past 72 hours, I have begun the work necessary to deliver on that mandate.

“Our manifesto was clear: sustained economic growth is the only route to improving the prosperity of our country and the living standards of working people.

“Where governments have been unwilling to take the difficult decisions to deliver growth – or have waited too long to act – I will deliver. It is now a national mission. There is no time to waste.

“I want to outline the first steps this new Government has taken to fix the foundations of our economy, so we can rebuild Britain and make every part of our country better off.”

The Conservatives went into the election in 2019 pledging to reach a target of 300,000 new homes a year, with mandatory building targets for all local authorities.

But in December last year, following a Tory backbench rebellion, the then-housing secretary Mr Gove watered down these mandatory local targets.

He rewrote the National Policy Planning Framework (NPPF) to say the targets were only aspirational, and to give town halls a series of ways to curb house building if it would damage a local area.

Labour’s manifesto pledged to “immediately” rewrite the NPPF “to undo damaging Conservative changes, including restoring mandatory housing targets”.

It said that while local communities will continue to “shape house building in their area”, Labour would “not be afraid to make full use of intervention powers to build the houses we need”.

The manifesto also pledged to build on more green belt sites if necessary by taking a “more strategic approach to green belt land designation and release to build more homes in the right places”.

‘Legacy of chaos’

In her speech, Ms Reeves will claim that Conservative rule had hampered growth and had left us trailing other major economies.

“We face the legacy of 14 years of chaos and economic irresponsibility,” Ms Reeves will say. “New Treasury analysis I requested over the weekend exposed the opportunities lost from this failure.

“Had the UK economy grown at the average rate of OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] economies since 2010, it would have been over £140 billion larger.

She added: “This could have brought in an additional £58 billion in tax revenues last year alone to sustain our public services. It falls to this new Government to fix the foundations.”

Labour’s manifesto outlined a slew of reforms to speed up planning and boost house building.

It said the party would ensure councils have up-to-date local plans on where housing and industrial development was needed and would fund the employment of hundreds more planning officers.

It also said that while a Labour government would prioritise brownfield sites for the construction of new homes and industries, this will “not be enough to meet our housing need”.

The party promised to build on more green-belt land, especially lower-quality “grey belt”: which is land technically in the green belt but is not of a particularly high landscape value.

However, the manifesto said the party would “prioritise the development of previously used land wherever possible, and fast-track approval of urban brownfield sites”.

Labour also promised a new generation of new towns, inspired by those planned by the post-war Attlee government such as Stevenage, in Herts, and reforms to speed up the construction of new infrastructure, such as road and rail links.

Elected mayors will be given greater powers to plan housing in their areas, and compulsory purchase rules will be changed to speed up building.

The aim is to deliver the biggest increase of social and affordable housing in a generation. Developers will be told to provide a greater proportion of affordable homes.

Sir Keir Starmer will meet England’s mayors on Tuesday. The Prime Minister said on Sunday that he would work “alongside them, sharing the ambition”.