Guardian 9 March: Sir Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet will meet top civil servants in Whitehall before Easter as Labour prepares to form the next government. That post-Easter conversation imagined: Treasury mandarin to DLUHC permanent secretary Sarah Healey: “Anything we need to worry about?”
“No. Rayner’s had her wings clipped on housing. Pennycook’s leading. He gave us a few non-leaked ideas, and updates on stuff we’ve seen. Good stuff on CPO and New Towns. Nothing costly in the first term. Reallocated budgets from Gove initiatives will cover. There’s a half-baked idea about getting councils to build homes for those on waiting lists; consult and kill, I suggest.”
“Excellent. So Pennycook thinks fixing planning will magic up Labour’s promise of 1.5 million homes in five years?”
“He says so, bless him.”
“Splendid. I was Gordon’s PPS when he was chancellor. Economists convinced him fixing planning would fix housing. Both main parties think housebuilders will follow their orders now, not the market! BTW: Rachel Reeves is on board with our study showing the 1.5 million target can only be hit by building 50,000 council houses each year, costing £10bn a year. They’ll likely blame planning for not meeting the target.”
Peter Bill is author of Planet Property and Broken Homes
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