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Planning Change
The Prime Minister is talking the talk on planning reform, but how far will his government walk?
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Five months in, and the Government have plumped for their first reset. In a bid to try and wrestle the narrative back from protesting farmers, angry businesses, and out-of-pocket pensioners before Christmas, the Prime Minister has laid out his ‘Plan for Change’. Six milestones from economic growth to NHS waiting lists were the centre piece, but it’s an additional pledge thrown into the speech that made us sit up and listen on Lord North Street.
The Prime Minister has pledged not only to ensure that 1.5 million new homes are built, a welcome if insufficient injection of supply into our housing market, but also to fast track planning decisions on 150 major infrastructure projects. That should be music to our ears at the IEA, having made the case for more development for years. But we’ve had our hearts broken before. So how excited should we actually be?
Well, the rhetoric is good, and a new development (pun unintended). Wherever previous governments have paid lip service to planning reform, it has almost always focused on housing. This is understandable given the housing crisis. But we know that in actuality, our planning problems and their consequences go much deeper than that. The inability of the UK to efficiently build anything, from transport to energy to prisons, is one of the biggest constraints on both economic growth and public services. That the Prime Minister is recognising this broader problem is an extremely positive development.
Rhetoric may not be enough, but it is a start. The prime minister sounds ready to take on the blockers and the protestors that get in the way of necessary developments. This will take courage, more than many politicians have shown.
So the noises are good, but there is still a fundamental problem - how are they going to do it? Talking a good game is important. But if you don’t have a way to deliver on that talk then you don’t have a plan at all. The Government really needs to have the courage to take on the NIMBYs in a more permanent way.
Because ultimately we shouldn’t need to win a bun fight just to build. If a private organisation wants to develop land it owns, it should be able to do that without having to satisfy central government, along with everyone else. That’s how things in the UK ran before the Town and Country Planning Act wrapped the iron fist of the state around Britain’s development. Accepting the premise of the fight accepts the socialist move to nationalise planning, which we shouldn’t do.
So while Sir Keir should be commended for his words, his action will need to do the talking. And if he is serious about change, he needs to think more fundamentally about planning, and be bold enough to fix the system rather than just trying to operate within it.
Callum Price
Director of Communications
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Executive Director Tom Clougherty, Editorial Director Kristian Niemietz, and Director of Communications Callum Price pick over Starmer’s reset, what it means for the economy and crime - and discuss the the liberal view of immigration on the IEA Podcast
Food advertising ban is “preposterous, puritanical government meddling”
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Responding to the Government’s ban on food advertising, Head of Lifestyle Economics Chris Snowdon said:
"This ban on food advertising has no global precedent so Britain is in uncharted territory, but I predict that it will not lead to a reduction in obesity. Every other anti-obesity policy has failed, including the sugar tax and mandatory calorie labelling, and I see no reason why this will be any different.
“It is bad news for broadcasters, internet platforms and for everyone who uses them. If, in five years time, obesity rates have not fallen, the ban should be repealed and serious questions should be asked of the pressure groups who pushed for it.
"We will soon be living in the only country in the world where sponge puddings, croissants and yoghurts are considered too dangerous to be advertised online and can only be shown on TV when young children are in bed. This is the most preposterous, puritanical government meddling and shows that this policy was never about so-called 'junk food' at all."
In the news:
‘Oat of Order’, The Sun
‘Wes Streeting bans adverts for yoghurt because it’s unhealthy … but pie commercials stay’, The Express
‘From porridge to pizza: Junk food ban will have ‘inevitable impact on growth’, CityAM
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On 11 December 1974 Friedrich Hayek gave his Nobel Prize lecture which would prove a turning point in the history of economics. | ||||||
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