Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has signalled radical reforms to the planning system and house building in a mini-Budget aimed at setting the foundation for the new Government.
Mr Kwarteng told the House of Commons that he wanted to ‘streamline’ the planning system, speed up the process for pushing through major infrastructure and ‘get Britain building’.
He said the Government would announce plans on a range of initiatives, including the planning system, ‘over the coming weeks’.
‘Today our planning system for major infrastructure is too slow and fragmented,’ he said.
‘The time it takes to get consent for nationally significant projects is getting slower not quicker while our international competitors forge ahead. We have to end this.
‘In the coming months we will bring forward a new bill to unpick the complex patchwork of planning restrictions and EU-derived laws that constrain our growth. We will streamline a whole host of assessments, of appraisals, of consultations, endless duplications and regulations.’
The Government is set to publish a list of infrastructure projects that will be ‘prioritised for acceleration’.
On housing, the Chancellor said: ‘To increase housing supply and enable forthcoming planning reforms we will also increase the disposal of surplus government land to build new homes.
‘We are getting out of the way to get Britain building.’
As expected, he also announced sweeping new incentives for proposed investment zones, saying: ‘We will liberalise planning rules in specified agreed sites releasing land and accelerating development.
‘On purchase of land and buildings for commercial or new residential developments there will be no stamp duty to pay whatsoever. On newly occupied business premises there will be no business rates to pay whatsoever.’
With new levelling up secretary sat next to him in the Commons, the Chancellor added: ‘If we really want to level up, Mr Speaker, we have to unleash the power of the private sector.’
Turning to stamp duty more generally, Mr Kwarteng doubled the level of exemption for initially paying the tax to £250,000. For first time buyers he increased the stamp duty exemption from £300,000 to £425,000 and lifted the value of properties where this could be claimed from £500,000 to £625,000.
The Government claims this permanent change, effective from today, will take 200,000 more people out of paying any stamp duty.