Leadership1 publisher3 min readPublished
Third-placed Conservatives would fold the Environment Agency and Natural England into Defra
Tory shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith will pledge to scrap the Environment Agency and Natural England and replace two developer obligations with one levy. With the party polling third, the pledges bind no one yet but name the rules a Conservative government would remove.
The Board Room · Leadership desk
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What happened
- The party would leave the Aarhus convention, which makes it easier for community groups to oppose developments.
- Net zero rules on housebuilding would go too, including the Future Homes Standard that requires new homes in England to be zero-carbon ready.
- The announcements come in Griffith's first speech as shadow chancellor, at the Conservative conference on Monday.
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Why it matters
- decision Boards appraising schemes that complete after the next election now have a second, Conservative regime to test alongside today's rules in their downside cases.
- cost Councils that now secure affordable homes and school and GP capacity through section 106 and CIL would depend instead on how one developer levy is set and shared.
- constraint Leaving Aarhus would narrow a route community groups use to contest developments, cutting one source of delay for promoters of contested schemes.
- exposure Investors tied to Heathrow expansion face a runway timetable that could differ by party, with Griffith pressing for speed against Burnham's stated scepticism.
Nothing in Monday's package alters a live planning application. The Conservatives are pledging from opposition, and the polls have them third behind Labour and Reform UK [7]. A planning director could fairly say the list is written for the conference hall. For this quarter that is correct, because a board approving a scheme today still prices section 106, the community infrastructure levy and the Future Homes Standard [1]. The case for reading it closely rests on what the party says it will do with the material. Kemi Badenoch said The Right Way, the tract she published on Sunday, would be the bedrock of the party's policy development before the next election [8]. Andrew Griffith will tell the conference: "We will set out our plans line by line. Every bill, every regulation, every chapter." [9]
The levy pledge has the most direct bearing on a housebuilder's appraisal. Section 106 agreements and the community infrastructure levy oblige developers to build a share of affordable housing and to support local school and health demand. Griffith will say both would give way to a "one stop" levy [4]. He states the trade-off in his own terms. The party wants to "streamline regulations" that oblige developers to include affordable homes and services such as GP surgeries, in order to speed up infrastructure and housebuilding [15]. The Guardian report does not include a rate for the new levy, so no developer or council can yet compare its yield with the two instruments it replaces.
On the regulators, the party's argument is about cost and volume. It says the Environment Agency and Natural England stop too many homes being built and add unnecessary costs to building [3]. Katie Lam, the new shadow housing secretary, will say scrapping the rules and the enforcement bodies would mean "anti-growth ideologues can never again hold our country hostage" [10]. In my view the scope of the change turns on one word. The functions that go to Defra are the ones the party calls "necessary", and that list will decide how much of today's environmental oversight a developer still meets [2].
On one project, Griffith is specific. "I refuse to accept for a single moment that the country of Brunel and Bazalgette, of the vaccine taskforce and the Mulberry harbours, has to sit around waiting until the 2040s to get a third runway built," he will say [11]. Andy Burnham has recently expressed personal scepticism about the third runway, saying he would take differing views seriously [12].
The party's strategists are betting on a gap in Labour's message. They believe there is a major opening to gain against Reform and Labour, given the limited focus on growth from Burnham and the chancellor, John Healey, at Labour's conference last week [13]. The economy is also where the Conservatives have made relatively little progress in the polls, according to the Guardian [14].
What to watch
- Whether the Conservatives publish a rate for the one-stop levy and say how its proceeds would be shared with councils.
- Which Environment Agency and Natural England functions the party classes as necessary enough to move into Defra.
- Whether the economy push lifts the Conservatives out of third place behind Labour and Reform UK.