The King’s Speech sets out the government’s legislative agenda for the following parliamentary session.
The King outlined around 35 draft laws including a national housebuilding programme to build 1.5 million homes, a bill to enact Labour’s pledge to nationalise the railways and a workers’ rights bill.
Jatin Ondhia, co-founder and CEO of Shojin Property Partners said, “Addressing the UK’s acute housing shortage demands bold action, and the King’s Speech underlined again that Labour see this is a keen priority, which is a promising start. Taking advantage of their supermajority to push through planning law reforms will be crucial over the next five years to fulfil their housing pledge and stimulate economic growth.
“The government was right to prioritise housing today. Announcing planning reforms and encouraging investment was necessary; however, now we need concrete and robust plans to meet housebuilding targets. Rhetoric alone won’t suffice — Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook has a long ‘to-do list’, and he must support the construction sector by mobilising the financial resources needed to realise these plans.
“The importance of building more homes to the economy cannot be overstated. By attracting international investment and strengthening partnerships with the private sector, the UK can achieve sustainable growth in the real estate sector and beyond, revitalising the economy and providing much-needed affordable housing.”
Places for People Chief Executive, Greg Reed, has issued the below statement on today’s King’s Speech.
Greg Reed, Places for People’s Chief Executive Officer, said: “Today is a big step forward for housing. I’m delighted to see Government immediately put housebuilding front and centre of its first King’s Speech, tackling many of the barriers that have been standing in our way for too long.
“As one of the UK’s leading affordable housebuilders with the biggest pipeline of any organisation in our sector, we stand ready to build at pace and scale with over 2,000 completions in train for 2024/25. But we want to and need to go even further and faster. We have written to the Secretary of State setting out how working with us can help the new Government realise its vision of delivering true change, and look forward to further conversations.
“Plans announced today will help unlock land, speed up the planning process and turbocharge housebuilding. But we need to see this in action. To really drive delivery of the right homes, in the right places, supported by the right infrastructure, local planning authorities need to provide their own local plans and only 22% of them have adopted one in the last five years. With hopes of interest rates being further cut next month fading, there’s no time to wait. The time to build is now.”
Reacting to the King’s Speech today, Sheila Kumar, Chief Executive of the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, said: ““Leasehold reform and a reinvigoration of commonhold are both welcome inclusions in the King’s Speech, but the government has missed an opportunity to make further improvements to the homebuying and selling process by failing to introduce measures to regulate property agents. Regulation of estate agents and managing agents could be immensely helpful for improving the operation of the property market, making better use of housing stock, supporting growth and providing increased confidence to consumers. The CLC is working with key organisations across the sector to pave the way to a better home buying and selling process that will benefit the nation and the new Digital Information and Smart Data Bill should support that work further.”
Stay tuned for more updates….
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