The Prime Minister vowed that the government and its regulators will “get rid” of planning rules that slow investment in housing and other areas at the UK’s inaugural International Investment Summit.
“We’ve got to look at regulation where it is needlessly holding back the investment, to take our country forward, said Keir Starmer in a speech to global business leaders that included Goldman Sachs, BlackRock and GSK at the Guildhall in London.
He added: “We’ve got to look at regulation where it is needlessly holding back the investment, to take our country forward.
“Where it is stopping us building the homes, the data centres, warehouses, grid connectors, roads, trainlines, you name it then mark my words – we will get rid of it.”
The government plans to build 1.5 million homes over the next five years, compared to around 1 million homes over the last parliament.
To aid this, it will add 300 planning officers around the country to speed up developments, at a cost of £20m.
Starmer said that the government will ask the Competition and Markets Authority to prioritise growth, investment, and innovation and will review the focus of other major regulators.
The summit, which also includes leaders from, Alphabet, Google and Eli Lilly, comes after last week the government announced over £24bn of investments in clean energy projects over the next four years.
A raft of new deals are expected to be announced at this one-day summit.
However, Octopus energy chief executive Greg Jackson told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning that at the household level, the planning permission needed to install a heat pump is “kind of crazy.”
Jackson said: “The government is very keen to support the move to heat pumps for heating our homes and yet there is a whole pile of rules that heat pumps suffer from.
“A lot of homes need planning permission, which is kind of crazy. Four out of 10 people who come to us for a heat pump are dropping out because of those regulatory barriers.
“What we need is regulation which lines up with the government’s objectives and that will enable us to deploy so much more investment in the UK economy.”
