The new Labour government’s plans for the year ahead will be read out by King Charles in a speech to Parliament today.
The speech is expected to outline around 40 draft laws ministers intend to introduce in the coming months, following Labour’s victory at this month’s general election.
Measures relating to illegal migration, workers’ rights, a new energy company, railway nationalisation, crime and punishment, budget rules, mental health, online safety, democracy and devolution, as well as education, are also expected to feature in the government’s programme, along with housing and planning.
Housing and planning
Labour promised to “immediately” ban Section 21 evictions in its election manifesto, and criticised the previous Tory government for not doing so by failing to pass its Renters Reform Bill before the election.
It has also pledged to extend a series of building safety rules for social tenants, known as Awaab’s Law, to private renters.
In addition, the new government has vowed to put reforms to England’s planning system at the heart of the speech, although it is not yet clear how many new laws there will be in this area.
Fergus Charlton, a partner in law firm Michlemores’ planning practice, commented: “The new government has made it clear that planning reform and house building is a key strategy. The focus on streamlining planning processes, setting clear targets, and unlocking new land for development seems a strong foundation for boosting housing supply and infrastructure development.
“However, the re-branding of green belt to grey belt will be contentious. There are powerful lobbies who consider the green belt to be sacrosanct. To be effective re-brandings must be so persuasive that the public forget the previous incarnation. Whether this happens will depend on the details of policy. If new developments in the grey built are still required to show ‘very special circumstances’ to proceed then little will be gained.”
The reintroduction of mandatory housing targets for local councils is also very welcome, according to Charlton.
He continued: “This top-down approach has historically been effective at incentivising local authorities to approve more building. Setting clear targets could help overcome local opposition and NIMBYism that often blocks development. Reforming the payment of hope value under the compulsory purchase rules will make it cheaper for local authorities to acquire land for regeneration and affordable housing by compensating landowners based on current market value rather than potential future value with planning permission.”
Also looking ahead to the planning reform and the housebuilding bill, the CPRE director of policy, campaigns and communications, Elli Moody, commented: “We welcome Labour’s ambition to build the homes we urgently need. However, they should start with the 1.2 million new homes that could be built on shovel-ready brownfield sites in England alone.
“The Green Belt is the countryside next door for 30 million people in the UK and has huge benefits for food security, physical and mental health, and nature restoration. Protections for it must be maintained in the policy framework.
“New homes on the Green Belt have rarely been genuinely affordable and create car-dependent communities far from public transport networks and other essential infrastructure.
“We also need to see ambitious targets in policy for genuinely affordable and social homes close to where people already live, work and go to school. The definition of ‘affordable’ housing should be changed to reflect local incomes rather than market rates.
“The government should deliver a strategic land-use framework that makes the best use of our finite supply of land and safeguards the Green Belt for future generations.
“We support Labour’s focus on plan-led development. We would like to see Local Plans include ambitious net zero and environmental targets.”
Labour warned it will miss its housebuilding target without emergency cash injection
With existing infrastructure, facilities and resources already stretched, going to take billions of investment to support housing supply in England. Simply not going to happen. There are a ton of sites consented all over London where over keen developers have bought and paid way too much to make projects viable. Such as an 800+ unit scheme in central London on the Old Kent Road. Remains an eye sore. Build costs going through the roof have also scuppered a lot of progress. Can’t see anything changing in the next five years.
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IF they want developers to develop brownfield sites then they need to make it more economical to do so than using cleaner greenfield or even grey field areas. Most ex industrial brownfield sites come with hefty bills to clean up the land and the costs make development uneconomical to do so. You get land remediation relief on the cost of taking away the contamination but NOT the cost of remediating the land back to a usable state. It’s cheaper, quicker and a hell of a lot easier to use clean land. If and its a big if, they are serious about this they also need to explain where the money is coming from to build the associated infrastructure that will be needed to support these new homes where ever they are built , more schools, doctors, hospitals , public transport etc and there is absolutely nothing being said about this at all.
A good sound bite with no substance?
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Yes the government should consult professionals in the industry. They’ve just walked into power and told the people what we want to hear. Here we go again frustrated the hell out of me driving around and so many large sites with provisions for social housing sitting empty. Needs an officer in each local authority identifying these and then applying pressure to get them progressed one way or another with developers. Assisting them if necessary in some financial deal or penalising if intentionally banking. I cover most of South London and certainly know of sites in excess of a 1000 units that have sat empty for years. Owned by social housing providers too!
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Section 21 was not abolished it was delayed because of the backlog in our courts. Once gone we will see more and more tenants with a CCJ against them making it almost impossible for them to find another rental. Landlords using s21 just wrote off the rent arrears, in fact, s21 was of more benefit to wayward tenants than landlords. We don’t have a housing shortage in homes to buy only to rent and building more homes for sale won’t help those on council waiting lists. We don’t have a housing crisis we have an overpopulation crisis but Government are doing nothing about this. Starmer and Raynor have already stated they want everyone to be a home owner. Home owners don’t claim UC (housing benefit.)
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You realise that the housing crisis is caused by not enough homes being built to keep up with the population increase?
I would also go so far as to say that the benefits system needs to be entirely re-worked as I don’t find it justifiable that someone in Central London (£704.22 p.w.) gets more than someone in lets say Pembrokeshire (£ 161.10 p.w.) for a 4 bed property. It should be a fixed amount and you move to where you can afford.
We should also do away with the Right to Buy as it simply reduces the housing stock for councils.
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Some on this forum might not know or be aware of previous Rent Acts during the ‘60’s & ‘70’s – a consequence Labours protection to tenants who became Controlled & Regulated. Basically these tenants had full security and rents set by a Rent Officer with a limited opportunity to obtain an uplift in rent being below market rates.
Today’s “tenant protections” will create a further dearth of rental properties with rent increases. A landlord takes the investment risk of providing rental opportunities whereby the Government (both parties) have failed to provide.
Admittedly there are unscrupulous landlords but believe a minority compared to majority of Landlords who act in good faith. Dare I say the same “unscrupulous lot” can also be found in Westminster.
Labour in power for about a week & truly fearful of where the next 5 years will take us – could this be the new “North Korea” where we are expected to act like puppets.
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