Shadow chancellor vows to reintroduce mandatory local housing targets
Rachel Reeves has pledged to reintroduce mandatory local housing targets – dropped by the government in 2022 – as part of sweeping reforms to the planning system under a Labour administration.
Ms Reeves’ remarks came as part of a speech at the annual Mais Lecture, delivered yesterday in the City of London to an audience of senior finance and banking figures.
Alongside the reintroduction of targets, she said a future Labour government would put planning “at the centre of our economic and political argument”.
Building on comments she made during the Labour Party Conference in the autumn, Ms Reeves described the planning system as “the single greatest obstacle to our economic success”.
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Shadow housing minister: ‘Majority of grant funding under Labour government will be for social rent’“Our planning system is a barrier to opportunity, a barrier to growth – and a barrier to homeownership, too,” she said.
“Planning dysfunction means that land is costly and inefficiently utilised, making the cost of building infrastructure in the UK significantly higher than in most developed economies, meaning higher energy prices, poorer transport and inadequate digital connectivity.”
The shadow chancellor added: “It prevents housing from being built where it is most needed – contributing to ever-higher prices and falling rates of homeownership, and constricting the growth of our most productive places.”
Labour has previously said it will review rules around building on green-belt land, as part of its target to build 1.5 million new homes over five years.
In her speech to the party conference in October, the shadow chancellor said Labour would oversee the appointment of 300 new planning officers, funded by an increase in the stamp-duty surcharge on non-UK residents, a topic she returned to in her Mais Lecture address.
“When it comes to housing, Labour will reintroduce mandatary local housing targets; recruit hundreds of new planners to tackle backlogs; and bring forward the next generation of new towns,” Ms Reeves said.
Housing targets as part of councils’ local plans were watered down, making them advisory rather than mandatory, in late 2022 after a backbench rebellion against the government on the issue.
Ms Reeves claimed Labour would deliver “a once-in-a-generation overhaul [of the planning system], to deliver the infrastructure and housing that is fundamental to our ambitions for homeownership, decarbonisation and growth”.
“Planning reform has become a byword for political timidity in the face of vested interests and a graveyard of economic ambition,” Ms Reeves added.
“It is time to put an end to prevarication and political short-termism on this question.
“There is no other choice – this Labour Party will put planning reform at the very centre of our economic and our political argument.”
Shadow housing minister Matthew Pennycook spoke to Inside Housing in October about how he will go about delivering the Labour Party’s plans if they form the next government.
