Rachel Reeves scraps onshore wind ban and unveils housebuilding drive
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced sweeping measures to boost economic growth including bringing back housebuilding targets in her first speech since assuming office in the Treasury.
Reeves said there is “no time to waste” in Labour’s mission to boost economic growth – one of the cornerstones of the party’s general election platform.
The Chancellor announced that mandatory housing targets would be brought back in a bid to meet a manifesto pledge to build 1.5 million homes over the next parliament.
She said: “Growth requires hard choices, choices that previous governments have shied away from, and it now falls to this new Labour government to fix the foundations.”
The 2024 manifesto said that housebuilding would prioritise brownfield sites and low quality ‘grey belt’ land in the green belt.
Reeves said that the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which sets out national planning priorities, would be reformed.
An “absurd” ban on new onshore wind will also be lifted, the Chancellor announced in her speech.
She also confirmed plans to help local authorities across the country hire hundreds more planning officers.
Reeves said: “There is much more to do, more tough decisions to be taken. You have put your trust in us, and we will repay the work towards a decade of national renewal has begun. There is no time to waste, and we are just getting started.”
She added that new Treasury analysis shows that the UK economy would have been £140 billion larger had it grown at the average rate of OECD economies since 2010.
The Chancellor also blasted the record of the Conservatives in government. When asked by the Guardian‘s Larry Elliott if she agrees with Liz Truss about the existence of an “anti-growth coalition” in Britain, Reeves said the “anti-growth coalition are the Conservative Party.”
She said she would soon present details to Parliament on how difficult the government’s public finances inheritance from the Conservatives is too.
A tough political fight
Labour’s big housebuilding drive could prove popular nationally but controversial locally.
The Telegraph had earlier reported that the reintroduction of mandatory housing targets will be announced in her speech, with a vow to take “difficult decisions” in Labour’s growth drive.
But political editor of the FT George Parker told the BBC: “Planning is one of the big levers you can pull early on to try to free things up, and get Britain building again, according to the slogan.
“The interesting thing though, is you’re running into a load of MPs who’ve just been elected, often representing seats that used to be represented by Conservative MPs, which might suddenly be being built on.
“And that is where the rubber hits the road, and that’s why you’ve got to move quickly, why you’ve still got that good will and why you still got that political mandate.”
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