Keir Starmer has promised to fast-track decisions on at least 150 major infrastructure projects by the end of this Parliament but has watered down a government target on decarbonising the UK grid.
The prime minister outlined six ‘milestones’ for the Labour government’s first five years in power in a set piece speech at Pinewood Studios this morning, which the party has billed as the “most ambitious yet honest programme for government in a generation”.
It included a commitment to triple the number of approvals for major infrastructure schemes compared to the last Conservative parliament by streamlining the approval process in the forthcoming Planning and Infrastructure bill.
Starmer described the current planning system as a “blockage in our economy that is so big it obscures an entire future”, adding that it was preventing the construction of projects including roads, grid connections, laboratories, rail lines, power stations and wind farms.
Giving examples of delays and cost increases on major projects, including £100m spent on a bat shelter for HS2, he said “I tell you now this government will not accept this nonsense anymore.”
“We will send a very clear message to the nimbies, the regulators, the blockers, the bureaucrats, the alliance of naysayers, the people who say Britain can’t do this, we can’t get things done in our country,” he said. “Well we say to them you no longer have the upper hand. Britain says yes.”
But Starmer also scaled back plans to decarbonise the UK electricity grid by 2030, admitting the government was now aiming for 95% clean energy by the end of the decade.
The former 100% target had been criticised as “mad, bad and dangerous” by shadow energy minister Claire Countinho and has been described by the National Grid as “incredibly stretching” due to the amount of work required over the next five years.
Energy secretary Ed Miliband insisted the new target, which had been recommended by the National Energy System Operator, was consistent with Labour’s pre-election pledge to decarbonise the UK as it had included a “strategic gas reserve”.
Starmer’s speech also re-committed the government’s promise to build 1.5 million homes by the end of this Parliament, although The Times’ political editor Steven Swinford has reported housebuilding will not “significantly” increase until 2027.
>> Also read: Pennycook ‘convinced’ 1.5 million homes are deliverable but won’t commit to annual targets
Other milestones included ending hospital backlogs, hiring an extra 13,000 police officers, improving education for pre-school children and raising living standards for every region of the country.
He admitted he faced an “almighty challenge” to hit his six milestones by the end of the Parliament and that setting the targets was potentially “risky” for the government.
“Some people may have said that’s pretty brave, you’ve seen the books now, you know how hard that NHS milestone is. Building 1.5 million homes is ambitious, perhaps a little too ambitious. And I’ll be honest, they’re right,” he said.
But he added: “Given our inheritance on housing starts, clearly if we don’t turbocharge housebuilding with reform, we won’t meet that milestone. And if that level of candour surprises you, then, honestly, it shouldn’t. After all, what is the point of setting a target that you can deliver without bold action? That’s not public service, that is political cynicism.”