Shadow chancellor to address Tory conference as he claims slashing red tape could cut cost of new houses by £50,000 – UK politics live
Labour rejects Tory call for Environment Agency and Natural England to be abolished
Why Tories claim their proposals could cut cost of building new homes by up to £50,000
Zack Polanski banned from Israel after Green party votes to equate Zionism with racism
Tories accused of copying Reform UK after shadow chancellor says axing red tape could cut cost of new homes by £50k
While the Tories debate the economy, Andy Burnham is hosting an away-day for his cabinet at Chequers, Andrew McDonald reports in his London Playbook briefing for Politico. He says:
One person tells Playbook there’ll be a session on the upcoming 10-year plan, which is due by the end of the year. Another person says much of the away day is about planning how to tackle the next three months, which may excite some of those Tories in Birmingham still arguing that a December election (?!) is a possibility. Long-term and short-term, there are loads of policy questions still to flesh out within Burnham’s sweepy vision. Cabinet ministers in Liverpool last week were waxing lyrical about Burnham’s openness and interest in their briefs as compared to the previous regime, so there’s a chance some of them might get something useful out of all this face time with the PM.
Sir Ephraim Mirvis, the chief rabbi, issued this statement last night criticising the Green party over its vote to say “Zionism is racism”. He describes it as “poisonous antisemitism’.
Emerging from our festival of Simchat Torah tonight, I was appalled to hear that the Green Party had passed its ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion earlier today.
It was the Soviet Union which first promoted the dangerous lie that Zionism is racism.
The UN adopted it, but was then shamed into revoking it.
Those in the Green Party and beyond who resurrect this discredited and dangerous slander should not imagine that history will judge them kindly.
All decent people will see this for what it is: poisonous antisemitism, a threat to British Jews and to Britain.
I would encourage those who wish to understand what Zionism truly is to read my essay from 2024.
The Labour party has issued a detailed response to the proposals announced by Andrew Griffith, the shadow chancellor, today. (See 8.08am.) In part, Labour is saying the problems Griffith raises are being addressed. But mostly it is saying the Tories have no credibility on these issues because they ignored them or allowed them to get worse, when they were in power.
Here are some of the Labour arguments.
On the Environment Agency and Natural England
Labour says it is already making these quangos more effective. It says the Environment Agency “now has both the officers on the frontline and the powers to go after illegal waste criminals” and the rules have been changed to reduce the role of Natural England in planning.
On getting rid of the EPR (extended producer responsibility)
Labour says EPR was a scheme “first announced by Theresa May and kept in place by successive Conservative governments, including ones served by members of the current shadow cabinet”.
Griffith is complaining in particular about the impact on the glass industry, because under pEPR (packaging extended producer responsibility) costs are higher for glass bottles than plastic bottles. Labour says ministers are “alive to pressures on the glass industry” and are working on a solution.
On building more nuclear power stations
Labour says the Tories did not build these when they were in power.
On simplifying the tax code
Labour says the length of the tax code “increased massively” when the Tories were in office.
On making houses cheaper
Labour says the average first-time buyer deposit in England rose from £28,770 when the Tories took office in 2010 to £55,372 when they left. It also says that, by 2024, 31% of first-time buyers needed a gift or loan from family or friends to pay a deposit. Labour announced a Your First Home scheme at conference to help first-time buyers, it says.
On building a third runway at Heathrow
Labour points out that Griffith opposed a second runway at Gatwick, near his constituency.
This is what the Tories are saying in their overnight news release about their plans to cut regulation affecting building on why they believe their measures could cut the cost of a new house by £50,000.
This is the short version.
The Conservatives have already pledged to scrap stamp duty on the family home, giving people a leg up onto the housing ladder. Now we are announcing radical supply-side reforms that will ensure the homes we need actually get built.
We will scrap unnecessary net-zero housing red tape that is stopping developers from building and driving up the cost of housing. We will ditch the Future Homes Standard and Part L of the Housing Regulations. All in all, we will cut the cost of delivering and therefore buying a new home by up to £50,000.
And here is the longer version. (Bold type from the original.)
Ideological net zero rules alone have added more than £30,000 to the cost of building a new home. Local Government viability assessments show that Net Zero rules add tens of thousands of pounds to the cost of building a new home. For instance, Birmingham City Council assessed that improved efficiency, heat pumps and solar panels increase the cost of a new detached home by as much as £30,789. The London Borough of Lewisham estimated that these rules would increase build costs by 15 per cent. (Birmingham City Council, Net Zero Plan Supporting Evidence Report, 7 September 2023, link, Lewisham Council, Viability Study 2022, 17 May 2022, link.)
These costs can be even higher as local and regional authorities often gold-plate these rules, imposing extra cost on developers. For instance, Policy SI2 (C) in the London Plan 2021 requires a 35 per cent uplift on energy efficiency beyond the national Building Regulations for major developments. (Mayor of London, The London Plan, March 2021, link.)
Other mandated changes are adding thousands in costs:
Government proposals on water efficiency are estimated to cost an additional £3,100 per home. (Home Builders Federation, The Viability Crunch, 1 May 2026 link.)
Requirements for EV chargers on all new residential buildings are increasing costs by £870 per property. (Home Builders Federation, The Viability Crunch, 1 May 2026 link.)
Accessibility standards introduced in 2022 have gold-plated requirements for wider internal staircases and level thresholds for entry to properties in new builds, which are estimated to have added £1,800 to the cost of building a home. (Home Builders Federation, The Viability Crunch, 1 May 2026 link.)
Additional Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) rules are adding £5,700 to the cost of construction:
Local authorities are imposing additional local rules significantly exceeding the national 10 per cent target for BNG. For instance:
More than a dozen local authorities require BNG of 20 per cent or more (as of January 2025). (Urbanist Architecture, BNG requirements for planning, 27 January 2025, link.)
Tower Hamlets in 2025 proposed a 30 per cent BNG target. (London Borough of Tower Hamlets Council, New Local Plan, June 2025, link.)
Last night Israel’s foreign affairs ministry said that Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, has been banned from the country following his party conference voting for a motion saying “Zionism is racism”.
The motion was “a clear antisemitic text according to the IHRA definition, as it denies the Jewish people’s right to self-determination”, the ministry said. It went on:
Therefore, as a first step, foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar has decided this evening to declare Green party leader Zack Polanski barred from entering Israel.
Here is Peter Walker’s full story on the Green party vote.
Good morning. Yesterday Kemi Badenoch published a tract setting out the principles that a Conservative government would follow in office. It was presented as Thatcherism revived for the 21st century, and a key theme was that government should leave wealth creation up to business, and not get in the way with red tape.
Today Andrew Griffith, the shadow chancellor, is presenting a plan that illustrates what this would mean in practice. Normally, at party conference, ministers and shadow ministers put out a press release in advance of their speeches highlighting just one headline policy idea, with perhaps one or two associated policies.
Overnight Griffith has published what is practically a manifesto. The press release alone runs to almost 5,000 words. Jessica Elgot had the task of reading them all for us yesterday and here is her write-up.
She has led her story on the plan to get rid of two environment quangos, the Environment Agency and Natural England.
But there are plenty of other proposals in the package too, including:
-Getting rid of net zero regulations and other planning laws, including section 106 agreements and the community infrastructure levy, that put up the cost of housebuilding.
-Getting rid of the EPR (extended producer responsibility), a law intended to make producers liable for waste disposal costs. The Tories call it the “grocery tax”.
-Backing a third runway at Heathrow.
-Leaving the Aarhus convention, an international treaty giving the public access to information relating to environmental decision-making. The Tories claim this enables the “lawfare hindering every major infrastructure project in this country”.
-Speeding up the delivery of more nuclear power stations.
-Simplifying the tax code.
The Tories claim the plans relating to housebuilding would “cut up to an estimated £50,000 off the price of a new home”.
There is more detail in what Griffith is proposing, and there is clearly a lot to discuss. Labour and Reform UK have both responded overnight – but taking different lines of attack.
Labour has said that Griffith has no credibility on these topics. In an overnight statement, Bridget Phillipson, the party chair, said:
Trusting the co-author of Liz Truss’ disastrous mini-Budget with Tory plans on the economy and housing is like asking an arsonist to run the fire service. Kemi Badenoch is once again demonstrating her appalling lack of judgement.
The Tories had 14 years in government to grow our economy and help people get on the housing ladder, but they completely failed at every turn.
But Richard Tice, the Reform UK deputy leader and business spokesperson, says that Griffith is copying ideas that his party has already adopted. He says:
Tories pledge to scrap some costs regulations and taxes they put in place!
They are copying Reform policies we announced weeks and months ago!
They are trying to fix problems they created 😡
Never forget
Never forgive
One of the themes emerging at this conference is that, while there is far less talk of some sort of Tory/Reform UK pact than there was a year ago, the policy overlap continues. Yesterday the Conservatives announced two other proposals (excluding foreigners from the student loan scheme, and reducing aid spending to just £1bn a year) that were little more than cut-and-paste versions of Reform UK pledges.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.45am: Andrew Bowie, the shadow energy secretary, speaks at the conference on the main stage (the smaller of the two halls the Tories are using at this conference for speeches). The other main morning speakers are Richard Holden, the shadow transport secretary, at 10.30am; Damian Hinds, the shadow health secretary, at 11.15am; and Andrew Griffith, the shadow chancellor, Helen Whately, the shadow work and pensions secretary, and Laura Trott, after 12.15pm.
12.14pm: Victoria Atkins, the shadow environment secretary, speaking in the fanzone area on the Conservative’s rural vision.
2pm: Griffith takes part in “meet the team” event in the symphony hall (the conference stage being used for larger events) with Richard Fuller, chief secretary to the Treasury, Katie Lam, the shadow housing secretary, and Julia Lopez, the acting shadow business secretary.
I’m afraid we are no longer able to have comments open below the line every day on this blog. If you want to contact me, please email politics.live@theguardian.com. You can use this email to flag up corrections, comments for publication, questions or complaints.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.