In the Planning Bill, Labour clothes a lack of ideas with odd old ends stol’n out of Tory writ

An argument that is tricky for an openly Conservative outlet to make is that Labour appears genuinely to have thought, before being elected, that there existed growth levers which the previous government was simply not pulling, and that having the grown-ups back in charge would be enough to put the country back on track.

It’s such an absurd position that the charge looks like the worst partisan hackery. But it does appear to be true – and not just because of the number of Labour sympathisers who’ll admit it, off the record.

We also have the Government’s own record. For example, would Rachel Reeves have been so quick to splash the cash – to, inverting common conventional wisdom, schedule several years of austerity for the end of a parliament – if she’d thought the money wouldn’t soon be rolling in again? What about that business-crushing budget?

Clearer evidence still, however, is Labour’s infrastructure agenda, specifically the Planning Bill. First, they had nothing ready to go after the election – and thus missed the chance to have planning reform in the King’s Speech and give any changes the maximum possible time to pay off before 2029.

Now, having taken months to put it together, this supposedly landmark legislation consists, to a really remarkable degree, of recycled proposals from the Conservative era.

The creation of a national scheme of delegation to planning officers, removing councillor oversight from all but the most controversial (read: big) developments? First proposed in the 2020 White Paper Planning for the Future (page 37), launched by Boris Johnson and Robert Jenrick. (Something shadow ministers outraged by the proposals might bear in mind.)

Overhauling connections to the National Grid from a queue to ‘first ready, first connected’? Right there in the Connections Action Plan published in November 2023 by Ofgem and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (page 11), with its foreword from Claire Coutinho.

Spatial planning by combined authorities? Provided for by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 (Schedule 7). Allowing developers to pay into a Nature Recovery Fund rather than design environmental mitigations on a case-by-case basis? Modelled on the Marine Recovery Fund, introduced for offshore wind developments in the Energy Act 2023 (explained here, page 13).

A compulsory review of the National Policy Statement for planning every five years? Literally the first recommendation of the National Infrastructure Commission Report into the Infrastructure Planning System, published April 2023. Restricting judicial review of Development Consent Orders for major infrastructure projects? Called for by the Banner Review (Recommendation 3), published in October last year but commissioned before the election, in March.

Readers may also recall when last month Steve Loftus pointed out that all the new reservoirs the Chancellor announced at the start of the year were, in fact, well in train before the Government took office.

The point here isn’t that cribbing – or more generously, continuing – policy from the previous government is bad. On the contrary, the best long-term reforms are very often a cross-party effort across several governments, as was education until Bridget Phillipson got hold of it.

Anyone interested in actually building enough houses should also welcome any move to revive the Jenrick reforms, product as they were of that fleeting moment when it looked as though Johnson might use his handsome majority in the Commons to drive through something challenging but worthwhile.

The point is instead how remarkable it is that Labour appears to have returned to office with an historic majority, after fourteen years in opposition, with so little idea of what it actually wanted to do with power that one of its most important pieces of legislation has been stitched together from, to borrow from the Bard, odd old ends stol’n out of Tory writ.

That’s to say nothing of where its other priorities actively undermine the growth agenda, be that in big, obvious ways such as reforms to employment rights, or more granular ones, such as freighting government procurement with new DEI criteria or burdening their housing plans with a laundry list of nice-to-haves.

Many of the Government’s senior ministers served in high office under New Labour. There are no shortage of progressive think-tanks. Given almost a decade and a half to meditate on how the country should be run, what were they doing?

Perhaps its another sign that this government is the last gasp of an ailing ancien régime, the last British government that will ever have the illusory comfort of taking office without realising the hole the country is in. But that might be optimistic – maybe this is instead simply the danger that awaits any opposition that believes the unpopularity of the government will be sufficient to deliver it to office.