What Labour’s Manifesto says for the Sector

As the Labour landslide continues to show the country’s dissatisfaction with the outgoing governments policies and perhaps personalities, here is a refresher on what is promised, I wonder if anyone will be betting on these!

• Mandatory housebuilding targets for local authorities
• Build 1.5 million new homes over a five-year period
• Planned new towns with a minimum of 40% of affordable housing, using design codes
• 150,000 social and affordable homes a year
• ‘Freedom to Buy’ policy to get 80,000 people on to the housing ladder by making the government’s existing mortgage guarantee scheme permanent
• ‘First Dibs’ policy to give local people first refusal on homes in new development

• Agreed design standards for “gentle urban development”.
• Require combined and mayoral Authorities to strategically plan for housing growth in their areas.
• Combined authorities to receive new planning powers along with new freedoms and flexibilities to make better use of grant funding
• Planning passports for developers which meet design standards, allowing easier brownfield development
• Create new ‘grey belt’ land class for poor quality areas of the green belt with requirement for at least 50% affordable housing
• Reform planning system for onshore wind to allow more projects to go ahead
• Hire 300 more planning officers, paid for by increasing stamp duty on homes purchased by non-UK residents by 1%
• “Tough action” to ensure planning authorities have up-to-date local plans
• Strengthen presumption in favour of sustainable development

• Independent inquiry into HS2 to look into how future projects can avoid cost overruns
• Fully committed to Northern Powerhouse Rail
• Merge the National Infrastructure Commission and Infrastructure and Projects Authority into a new body called National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA), which would have new powers.
• Designate prisons as ‘nationally significant’ projects in an effort to deliver 14,000 additional places by 2030

• Revamped apprenticeship levy to fund specialist training colleges
• Firms can use up to half of apprenticeships funds to train existing staff or pay for pre-apprenticeship training
• New law aiming to cut immigration by forcing government departments to draw up skills improvement plans in high migration sectors including construction

• £15bn on green investment a year (£4.7bn of which is new money)
• Upgrade five million homes to an EPC C rating over the course of the parliament
• Decarbonise UK power by 2030 under new body, Great British Energy
• Targets for faster approvals on renewable projects
• Double onshore wind, triple solar and quadruple offshore wind by 2030