Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s administration is expected to unveil more than 35 bills at the state opening of parliament, ranging from establishing a publicly-owned energy company to removing the rights of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords.  

But unblocking planning restrictions for housebuilding as well as major infrastructure projects is seen as a key measure to boost business spending and foreign investment to create jobs.  

Starmer says: “From energy, to planning, to unbreakable fiscal rules, my government is serious about delivering the stability that is going to turbo charge growth that will create wealth in every corner of the UK.”  

Last week, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said in her first major speech: “Planning reform has become a byword for political timidity in the face of vested interests and a graveyard of economic ambition.  

“Our antiquated planning system leaves too many important projects getting tied up in years and years of red tape before shovels ever get into the ground.”  

Reeves said the government would reform the National Planning Policy Framework, consulting on a new growth-focused approach to the planning system “before the end of the month, including restoring mandatory housing targets”.  

Labour’s manifesto last month made several key pledges on housebuilding and reform.  

Housing    

• Build 1.5 million new homes over the next five-year parliament     
• Restore local council mandatory housing targets    
• Introduce a permanent mortgage guarantee scheme to support first-time buyers    
• Launch a Warm Homes plan to upgrade the energy performance certificate levels of 5 million homes through grants and low-interest loans, costing £6.6bn over five years    
• Immediately abolish Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions and “prevent private renters  
• being exploited and discriminated against”  
• Will “tackle” unregulated and unaffordable ground rent charges, and will act to bring what it calls the “fleecehold” of private housing estates and unfair maintenance costs to an end  

Planning    

• Build a “new generation” of new towns    
• Require all combined and mayoral authorities “to strategically plan for housing growth in their areas”    
• Appoint 300 new planning officers, costing t£20m over five years    
• Reform compulsory purchase compensation rules “to improve land assembly, speed up site delivery, and deliver housing, infrastructure, amenity, and transport benefits”    
• Deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation  

However, many industry observers expect fierce resistance to these plans from neighbourhood communities as well as opposition MPs in rural constituencies who will want to protect the green belt and safeguard local house prices.