The Conservatives are preparing to abolish the Environment Agency and Natural England, and to drop the Future Homes Standard, as part of what shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith will call “the most ambitious deregulation project in a generation”. The package is due at the party conference on Monday.
The timing is deliberate. The party wants to be heard on the economy, where it has made relatively little headway in the polls, and where strategists see an opening against Reform and Labour. The Conservatives still trail in third place behind both.
What goes
The Future Homes Standard, which requires all new homes in England to be zero-carbon ready, is the headline casualty. The party claims that scrapping it and similar net zero rules on housebuilding would cut the price of a new home.
Section 106 agreements and the community infrastructure levy, which oblige developers to provide affordable housing and to help pay for local schools and health services, would give way to a single “one stop” levy. Griffith will argue that the existing rules slow down infrastructure and housebuilding.
Natural England and the Environment Agency would both be abolished, with their necessary functions moved directly into Defra. The party says the two bodies stop too many homes being built and add needless cost. Its own wording promises “a more streamlined regulatory landscape to protect our environment”. Katie Lam, the new shadow housing secretary, will say the changes mean “anti-growth ideologues can never again hold our country hostage”.
Heathrow, tax and the Aarhus convention
Griffith, giving his first speech in the job, will also commit the party to leaving the Aarhus convention, which makes it easier for community groups to challenge developments. He will back Heathrow expansion and press the government to hasten a third runway. “I refuse to accept for a single moment,” he will say, that a country of “Brunel and Bazalgette” must wait until the 2040s. Andy Burnham has recently voiced personal scepticism about the runway.
Tax gets the same treatment. Shadow Treasury ministers will be told to find ways of simplifying it for individuals and businesses, and Griffith will describe the code as “a cat’s cradle of complexity”. He promises to set out the party’s plans “line by line”, covering every bill, every regulation, every chapter.
The Right Way
The announcements follow a new document from Kemi Badenoch, The Right Way, published on Sunday. Modelled on Margaret Thatcher’s The Right Approach of 1976, it is meant to underpin policy development ahead of the next election. Badenoch insists the party still expects to win, and must be “ready from day one”. Of Keir Starmer, she said: “He didn’t have a plan. That’s why he’s gone.” Burnham, she added, has none either.
