Labour will “take the housing crisis head on” and deliver on devolution if it forms the next government, according to its deputy leader.
Addressing the LGA’s annual conference, Angela Rayner MP reiterated her party’s pledge to ensure a bill devolving power locally is in the first King’s Speech of a Labour government.
“We have a politics that won’t hand over power and an economy that doesn’t hand out potential,” she told delegates in Bournemouth.
“I say: let’s give people all of the nationwide standards they expect. But let’s also give them the control, the chance to direct their community – a bigger stake in the future of their neighbourhood, their town, their city, their county.
“We say: the decisions that create wealth in our communities, economic wealth and civic wealth, should be taken by local people with skin in the game.”
Warning of a “total collapse” in housebuilding, Ms Rayner also promised that Labour would “start building things… more windfarms, more laboratories, and more homes”. It would bring back national housebuilding targets, but also reform planning laws to “empower” councils to build more homes, and more affordable homes.
This would include on land designated as green belt “that isn’t protecting environmental heritage”, such as car parks, abandoned petrol stations and old rubbish tips.
“Surely these places can be put to better use, and what better use than providing the security of a home,” she said.
