There will be more than 35 bills introduced in the Labour leader’s speech, from workers’ rights to housing targets
Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister (chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster), was on the Today programme. He is now officially the fourth most important person in government (after Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves), and he defended the approach to planning being outlined in the speech. Here are the main points from his interviews.
McFadden said that some of Labour’s planning’s reforms would be “controversial”, but that the government had a mandate for these from the election. He told the Today programme:
We were very clear during the election campaign that we would come out of this on the side of getting things built more quickly.
That may be controversial in some places, I’ve no doubt that it will be.
He said it was a “myth” to say that building did not currently take place on the green belt. He told Times Radio:
It’s simply a myth to say that there are parts of what we call the green belt that haven’t been built on in recent years. And it’s been done in an uncontrolled way.
And we don’t want to sacrifice the beautiful parts of our countryside. But we do have to get things built in this country.
He said he accepted that some Labour MPs would object to new developments going ahead under the new rules. “You can have lots of fun in the next couple of years saying, here’s a Labour MP who doesn’t want this particular development. I know that will happen,” he told Times Radio. Asked if that amounted to hypocrisy, he replied:
I’m not predicting that everything we do is going to be opposed by MPs. But what I’m saying is in the real world, there’ll be some developments that some people don’t like, that’s always going to be the case.
Continue reading… The Guardian Read More There will be more than 35 bills introduced in the Labour leader’s speech, from workers’ rights to housing targetsPat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister (chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster), was on the Today programme. He is now officially the fourth most important person in government (after Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves), and he defended the approach to planning being outlined in the speech. Here are the main points from his interviews.McFadden said that some of Labour’s planning’s reforms would be “controversial”, but that the government had a mandate for these from the election. He told the Today programme:We were very clear during the election campaign that we would come out of this on the side of getting things built more quickly.That may be controversial in some places, I’ve no doubt that it will be.He said it was a “myth” to say that building did not currently take place on the green belt. He told Times Radio:It’s simply a myth to say that there are parts of what we call the green belt that haven’t been built on in recent years. And it’s been done in an uncontrolled way.And we don’t want to sacrifice the beautiful parts of our countryside. But we do have to get things built in this country.He said he accepted that some Labour MPs would object to new developments going ahead under the new rules. “You can have lots of fun in the next couple of years saying, here’s a Labour MP who doesn’t want this particular development. I know that will happen,” he told Times Radio. Asked if that amounted to hypocrisy, he replied:I’m not predicting that everything we do is going to be opposed by MPs. But what I’m saying is in the real world, there’ll be some developments that some people don’t like, that’s always going to be the case. Continue reading…
