Labour positions itself as the party of development
Labour will attempt to position itself as the party of housebuilding and development in a speech to the British Cambers of Commerce by Sir Keir Starmer today.
The Labour leader is planning to say: “Mark my words: we will take on planning reform. We will bring back local housing targets. We will streamline the process for national infrastructure projects and commercial development and we will remove the veto used by big landowners to stop shovels hitting the ground.”
He will also say that housebuilding is on course to fall to it lowest level since the Second World War under the Conservatives, who are killing “the aspiration of homeowning for a whole generation”.
Labour will attempt to position itself as the party of housebuilding and development in a speech to the British Cambers of Commerce by Sir Keir Starmer today.
The Labour leader is planning to say: “Mark my words: we will take on planning reform. We will bring back local housing targets. We will streamline the process for national infrastructure projects and commercial development and we will remove the veto used by big landowners to stop shovels hitting the ground.”
He will also say that housebuilding is on course to fall to it lowest level since the Second World War under the Conservatives, who are killing “the aspiration of homeowning for a whole generation”.
“We choose the builders, not the blockers; the future, not the past; renewal not decline. We choose growth,” he will say.
He said in interviews that Labour would give councils and residents more power to build on green belt land to meet local housing need.
“Give local authorities, local areas more power to decide where it will be and you alleviate that problem. So it is not as binary or straightforward as ‘green belt, not green belt’. It’s how you direct where the housing will be.”
He added Labour would make it easier to build infrastructure for new developments, as well as ending the moratorium on onshore wind turbines.
Starmer is seeking to focus on housebuilding as it is a key area where government MPs are deeply divided.
Starmer vowed to be “tough enough to take on vested interests”, accusing “developers and landowners” of building too little housing in order to drive up prices.
The Labour leader has also embraced reports that Labour would establish a legal right to work from home, describing it as “very important to us”. He said: “Security, dignity and respect at work matters to working people. And because every good employer will tell you and every good business will tell you that if you want high productivity, if you want a well-run business, then how you treat your workforce is part of that.”
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