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New British government wants to stimulate economic growth
“Where governments have been unwilling to make tough decisions to deliver growth — or have waited too long to act — I will deliver,” she told business leaders and reporters.
Britain’s first female Treasury chief and a former Bank of England economist, Reeves said sustained economic growth was the only way to improve living standards for everyone and rebuild the country’s overstretched and underfunded public services.
She said she was taking immediate steps to relax planning rules and remove obstacles to building infrastructure, housing and energy projects.
“For investors and businesses who have spent 14 years wondering whether Britain is a safe place to invest, then let me tell you, after 14 years, Britain has a stable government,” she said. “In an uncertain world, Britain is a place to do business.”
Reeves said he would assess the “spending legacy” left by the Conservatives in the coming months before making the government’s first budget statement later this year.
She promised to set a binding target of 1.5 million new homes in England over the next five years, as well as removing an effective ban on onshore wind developments that has been in place since 2015.
Environmental group Friends of the Earth celebrated the announcement.
“By ending the ban on onshore wind in England, Labour is taking an important step towards achieving our climate targets, while also paving the way for lower bills, as renewables produce some of the cheapest and cleanest energy available,” said Mike Childs, the organisation’s head of science, policy and research.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who became leader on Friday after a landslide majority in last week’s election, has promised to “rebuild the infrastructure of opportunity” for voters frustrated with a stagnant economy, rising poverty and dysfunctional public health care.
Rising rent and mortgage rates and a chronic housing shortage were among the key issues raised by voters during the election campaign. Housebuilding in Britain has slowed in recent decades and in the year to March, construction started on about 135,000 homes – a drop of more than a fifth compared with the previous year.
The current system is “clearly anti-growth, and these proposals should help,” said Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, an independent think tank.