Starmer and Reeves’ big planning idea? Trash nature and concrete it over
I don’t know why, but it continues to astonish me just how foolish politicians can be – and how easily persuaded they are by really bad advice from smart but tin-eared advisers.
In less than a year, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have squandered the gift of the huge majority won at last year’s General Election on one key issue after another: their response to the genocide in Gaza; wantonly cruel cuts in disability benefits; failing to find creative ways of taxing wealth; dealing with the water companies – and, now, on the new Planning and Infrastructure Bill.
On 23 May 23, the Wildlife Trusts and the RSPBlaunched a devastating attack on Labour’s whole approach to streamlining the planning system through the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.Advertisement
Part 3 of the bill will make it possible for developers to ignore existing environmental protections by paying money into a so-called ‘Nature Recovery Fund’, which will be used to pay for environmental projects elsewhere.
Starmer and Reeves have gone out of their way, time after time, to claim that it’s these environmental safeguards that are responsible for delays and blockages in the planning process, even though they know this is completely untrue.
According to the Wildlife Trusts, roughly 3 per cent of proposals for new housing are delayed for environmental reasons. As The Guardian reported: ‘the data from analysis of 17,433 planning appeals in England in 2024 found that newts were relevant in just 140planning appeals, and bats were relevant in 432.’
‘They pursue this path even though are no polls to show that this is what matters to Labour voters tempted by Reform’
So what makes Starmer and Reeves both stupid and totally dishonest? By all accounts the rationale of their tin-eared advisers is to demonstrate to ‘Reform-friendly’ Labour voters that the environment is as unsafe in their hands as it would be in Nigel Farage’s. That economic growth is all that matters. That caring for the natural world is a middle-class self-indulgence. And that pouring as much concrete as possible is self-evidently the best way of achieving that growth.
And they go on pursuing this ideological path even though there are no supporting polls to show that this is what really matters to Labour voters tempted by Reform’s populist bullshit.Advertisement
So they lie. They dig in. They break promises left, right and centre, ready to die, apparently, in this self-constructed ditch of developer-led deceit. That’s why every single amendment put forward through the committee examining the bill was summarily dismissed by the loyal but lumpen Labour MPs on the committee.
These included an amendment tabled by veteran Labour MP Barry Gardiner requiring all house builders to provide a specially designed brickto help cavity-nesting such as swifts, house martins, sparrows and starlings – a measure that Labour in opposition enthusiastically supported! And there’s huge public support for this one small, cost-effective biodiversity regulation.
To get a measure of this government’s subservient obedience to the demands of the volume housebuilders, just listen to the words of housing minister Matthew Pennycook: ‘We are not convinced that legislating to mandate the use of specific wildlife features is the right approach, whether that is done through building regulations or a freestanding legal requirement'.
It’s all so demeaning. So unnecessary. And now that the mainstream environment movement, urged on primarily by the Wildlife Trusts, has realised just how high the stakes are with this Planning and Infrastructure Bill, it’s reasonable to assume that there will be a much more serious debate in the House of Lords, bringing down on ministers’ helmeted heads the righteous outrage of the entire movement.
As we’ve learnt, in less than one deeply depressing year, this is a government that needs to be kicked harder and harder until they get desperate enough to make the pain go away.
P.S. If you want to read a brilliant summary of ‘reasons to be outraged’, check out George Monbiot’s take on this.
Jonathon Porritt is a campaigner and author and co-founder of Forum for the Future
This article first appeared on his blog
2025-06-06
Jonathon Porritt
comment and share
#starmer #reeves #big #planning #ideaStarmer and Reeves’ big planning idea? Trash nature and concrete it over
I don’t know why, but it continues to astonish me just how foolish politicians can be – and how easily persuaded they are by really bad advice from smart but tin-eared advisers.
In less than a year, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have squandered the gift of the huge majority won at last year’s General Election on one key issue after another: their response to the genocide in Gaza; wantonly cruel cuts in disability benefits; failing to find creative ways of taxing wealth; dealing with the water companies – and, now, on the new Planning and Infrastructure Bill.
On 23 May 23, the Wildlife Trusts and the RSPBlaunched a devastating attack on Labour’s whole approach to streamlining the planning system through the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.Advertisement
Part 3 of the bill will make it possible for developers to ignore existing environmental protections by paying money into a so-called ‘Nature Recovery Fund’, which will be used to pay for environmental projects elsewhere.
Starmer and Reeves have gone out of their way, time after time, to claim that it’s these environmental safeguards that are responsible for delays and blockages in the planning process, even though they know this is completely untrue.
According to the Wildlife Trusts, roughly 3 per cent of proposals for new housing are delayed for environmental reasons. As The Guardian reported: ‘the data from analysis of 17,433 planning appeals in England in 2024 found that newts were relevant in just 140planning appeals, and bats were relevant in 432.’
‘They pursue this path even though are no polls to show that this is what matters to Labour voters tempted by Reform’
So what makes Starmer and Reeves both stupid and totally dishonest? By all accounts the rationale of their tin-eared advisers is to demonstrate to ‘Reform-friendly’ Labour voters that the environment is as unsafe in their hands as it would be in Nigel Farage’s. That economic growth is all that matters. That caring for the natural world is a middle-class self-indulgence. And that pouring as much concrete as possible is self-evidently the best way of achieving that growth.
And they go on pursuing this ideological path even though there are no supporting polls to show that this is what really matters to Labour voters tempted by Reform’s populist bullshit.Advertisement
So they lie. They dig in. They break promises left, right and centre, ready to die, apparently, in this self-constructed ditch of developer-led deceit. That’s why every single amendment put forward through the committee examining the bill was summarily dismissed by the loyal but lumpen Labour MPs on the committee.
These included an amendment tabled by veteran Labour MP Barry Gardiner requiring all house builders to provide a specially designed brickto help cavity-nesting such as swifts, house martins, sparrows and starlings – a measure that Labour in opposition enthusiastically supported! And there’s huge public support for this one small, cost-effective biodiversity regulation.
To get a measure of this government’s subservient obedience to the demands of the volume housebuilders, just listen to the words of housing minister Matthew Pennycook: ‘We are not convinced that legislating to mandate the use of specific wildlife features is the right approach, whether that is done through building regulations or a freestanding legal requirement'.
It’s all so demeaning. So unnecessary. And now that the mainstream environment movement, urged on primarily by the Wildlife Trusts, has realised just how high the stakes are with this Planning and Infrastructure Bill, it’s reasonable to assume that there will be a much more serious debate in the House of Lords, bringing down on ministers’ helmeted heads the righteous outrage of the entire movement.
As we’ve learnt, in less than one deeply depressing year, this is a government that needs to be kicked harder and harder until they get desperate enough to make the pain go away.
P.S. If you want to read a brilliant summary of ‘reasons to be outraged’, check out George Monbiot’s take on this.
Jonathon Porritt is a campaigner and author and co-founder of Forum for the Future
This article first appeared on his blog
2025-06-06
Jonathon Porritt
comment and share
#starmer #reeves #big #planning #idea
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