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When I sat down with Berkeley Group executive chair Rob Perrins last month, he seemed, for a moment, to be channelling TV judge curmudgeon Craig Revel Horwood.
Lem Bingley, PW editor
Asked what he thought of Labour’s performance in office so far, he responded that housing secretary Steve Reed and minister Matthew Pennycook had done well on planning reform, but didn’t deserve 10 out of 10.
“Please do say it’s like Strictly Come Dancing in the article,” he joked. “The reason they lose a mark, not because they haven’t danced very well, is because it’s still too complex… They’re trying to please too many people.”
Perrins added that to actually see development take off, the government must take quick steps to cut the complexity of planning requirements, dramatically improve viability and inject more “longevity and certainty” into the business of building new things.
“You’ve got to give investors confidence that they can make a return,” he said. “They haven’t quite addressed that issue.”
The Cabinet trotted out to support Starmer, but behind the scenes there will be some sore shins
The following week I discussed similar topics with Conservative shadow housing secretary Sir James Cleverly. Unsurprisingly, he was not about to whip out a sequin-encrusted ‘10’ paddle either.
“Reworking the planning system is not suddenly going to get a whole load of trained people in the building profession,” Cleverly observed. “It’s not suddenly going to free up a whole load of finance for businesses that are struggling to raise [funds]. It’s not going to deal with the practicalities of getting homes connected up to the infrastructure that they need. [The problem] has to be looked at in totality, or there’s not really any point looking at it at all.”
He went on to argue that Sir Keir Starmer’s administration has not fully grasped “one of the truest truisms in politics, which is to govern is to choose”.
Cleverly explained: “At a time when people are really struggling to get on the housing ladder, when housing starts and confidence in the market are collapsing, they prioritised a complete rebuild of England’s local government structures. You cannot set about ripping apart and rebuilding those structures and expect that it will not have an impact on the ability of those local authorities to actually play their part in creating a better built environment or creating more homes.”
He added: “When they say they’re prioritising the building of 1.5 million houses, they’re also prioritising the creation of all these regional mayors, the move to unitary authorities and a shift in how elections are run. It’s like, well, hang on a second; if you’ve got loads of priorities, you actually don’t have any priorities. And then we wonder why these homes are not being built.”
At the time of writing, midway through Wednesday, Starmer remains in No 10 despite the number of colleagues that seem eager to vote him out. His Cabinet all trotted out to support him, but behind the scenes there will be some sore shins.
So, how exactly is Labour doing on offering certainty to investors? Where did I put my ‘zero’ paddle?