Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Gups]

Thought you guys would be interested in this LinkedIn post by Chris Young KC who is a leading planning silk, particularly on new settlements and urban extensions. (NPPF = National Planning Policy Framework). As he says point 6 is the key to overriding local authorties in thrall to the NIMBY vote. If Labour can do this, it will be a quick and cost-effective way of unblocking planning for house building.

The Labour Party has said it intends to make changes within weeks of taking office. So how do they do it?

Answer - Through the NPPF and appeal decisions.

People responding to yesterday's post asked "can a new government amend planning legislation that quickly. Doesn't it have to go through Parliament etc?"

The answer is no. National politicians like to think everything is about legislation. That's because it's their day job.

God knows we have enough of it in the planning system. Endless reform. Politicians keep producing new legislation. They tell us changing it will fix everything. Only it doesn't. Most of it just creates uncertainty.

The real answer lies in the NPPF. The NPPF is what drives housing delivery.

So what is needed is:
1. Mandatory housing targets which properly reflect need.
2. Mandatory targets for the delivery of affordable housing.
3. Every local authority required to meet its need.
4. Review Green Belt, to stop it being used as an excuse not to deliver homes
5. Local plans to be produced on time with the right numbers.
6. Serious sanctions if local authorities do not do all of the above.

It really is as simple as that. And Labour plan to do this.

There needs to be housing targets which properly reflect need. That means higher targets across the country. Not just piling it all into the biggest cities, where there is no hope of it being delivered.

Don't get me wrong, I promote lots of tall buildings in London and other major cities. And I see the merit in Build to Rent, as a vital way of addressing the immediate housing needs of younger people.

But more housing is needed in the shires. It is this which best delivers affordable housing. Labour will change the standard method, so it delivers 300,000 effectively.

But the real key to all of this is No6 in the list.

There have to be effective sanctions.

Only yesterday Tory MP Simon Clarke described the penalties for a local authorities not having a local plan as "trivial". He's right. It's just a shame he didn't say that when he was the Secretary of State for Housing.

How will Labour get their message across?

The NPPF was issued in 2012, when the Government really did want to boost significantly the supply of new homes. To back up it's message, Eric Pickles issued a series of dramatic recovered appeal decisions, including 350 homes on a greenfield site at Worsley in Manchester. The Inspector recommended refusal on the basis it would "seriously degrade" the character of the area (para 21). But Eric rejected that, concluding housing delivery and an up-to- date plan were simply more important.

He then reversed his own previous decisions to refuse permission for both Richborough Estates and Fox Land's big greenfield sites at Sandbach in Cheshire.

Appeal success rates then shot through the roof.

Labour Shadow Ministers know about this.

Expect to see decisions like this from October.

[Sheilbh]

So it looks like Sturgeon's husband has been charged with embezzling SNP party funds. Obvs reporting restrictions and contempt of court rules apply so it's just "a 59 year old man has been charged..." at this point.

Edit: Also I absolutely love that we've had the Angela Rayner story running recently about how she bought her council house, sold it a few years later and may or may not have paid the correct tax (from what I can tell it depends on where her "main residence" was and she was just starting to move in with her partner). She didn't take legal advice at the time on the tax bill.  And you've had Tory MPs basically going "no...but really, it's terrible tax evasion if you look into the details and why isn't she answering any questions". Only for, out of the clear blue sky, an insane story about another Tory MP to drop. The correct capital gains tax Rayner should have paid v a story with the sub heading "Sex, drugs and a drunk dog"

[HVC]

You have to build homes with special bricks for bees and birds to save nature! But dumping untreated sewage into waterways is fine, nature won't mind

 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/20/dirty-secret-insiders-say-uk-water-firms-knowingly-breaking-sewage-laws

[Josquius]

Privatisation at the best of times is a mistake. Doing it with the water companies was just downright lunacy that really highlighted how it was all about ideology rather than any genuine belief it was a better solution.


On the planning thing of Gups... Shame we can't see real change. It does sound like good news on the surface but I can't help but worry some really awful stuff will be pushed through with this too. Developers cutting corners and delivering things with genuine issues confident complaints there will be grouped together with the nimby complaints.

My fingers are still crossed the government does what the system was meant for and start planting new towns around rural train stations.

[HVC]

Seems like your environmental agencies are turning a blind eye too.

[Sheilbh]

Although the three companies asked for comment - Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Water - are broadly either publicly owned or not for profit. So I'm not sure that's necessarily the issue.

[Josquius]

In other the government are scum news.

BBC News - UK rejects EU free movement for young people offer
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68848046

Not unexpected. And understandable labour wants to avoid leaving the government anything to debate about other than their failures.
But still reminds me that this country really wants to be hated.

[Sheilbh]

It wasn't really an offer.

The Commission asked the Council for a mandate to make an offer - Labour and the government said they weren't interested. It seems a bit uncoordinated - and also very weird timing given that within a year we'll have a new government in the UK and a new Commission in the EU.

I don't see any reason why the UK would necessarily want to agree to it. It's very different from any other youth visa scheme the UK has (which it needs to be for the EU to be able to make an offer v member states) and coud be a bit challenging.

[Tamas]

I read the UK will want instead to make arrangements with individual countries. They clearly want to keep Eastern Europeans out.

[Sheilbh]

I agree that I think that's the motivation for the Commission seeking this mandate (so far the UK's been reported to have been talking with France, Germany, Spain and Switzerland). But I think that's why this proposal looks a bit weird.

As I say member states already have schemes like this and they're broadly all quite similar. So the eligibility (up to 30 or 35) and duration (2 or 3 years) varies a little but fundamentally it's a bilateral deal, there's a cap (which, for the UK, no country hits) and there's no recourse to public funds (i.e. no benefit entitlement). The UK has these schemes with a bit of an odd mix: Andorra, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Japan, Monaco, New Zealand, San Marino, South Korea, Taiwan and Uruguay. But other EU countries have similar schemes, Germany has the same with Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand (plus a shorter 3-6 month option with Argentina, Chile, Israel and Ururguay).

To my knowledge there are no EU youth mobility schemes - it's a visa so it's immigration policy and has always been done by member states with third countries on a bilateral (and reciprocal) basis because it's a type of visa.

I think Eastern Europe is lower down the list of priorities but, given that there is an annual cap, I wouldn't be surprised if there were bilateral agreements there. Canada seems to have agreements with a lot of Eastern European countries too - although Australia only has Estonia so maybe not.

The main thing I don't get is why now given both the UK government and the Commission are coming to the end of their terms and why the Commission asked for a mandate without informally scoping if there was any appetite for this type of deal with the country they'd be talking to. It seems very odd. FWIW based on the description of it from an immigration lawyer I follow I can't see any reason any UK government of any party would want to sign up to it.

[Syt]

Do I understand this article correctly, that Sunak thinks that "health specialists" instead of GPs should issue sick notes, because he thinks they're too generous with writing people as unfit to work?

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-68853166

[Tamas]

Yes.

[Syt]

Wouldn't the GP (or whatever specialist) be in a better position to give you a sick note, if we talk about normal illnesses? Esp. if they know you personally?

Over here sick notes are handled that way. Though if you're on long term sick leave, after a few months (2? 3?) the insurance might ask you to see one of their doctors for verification. And if you apply for disability, there's rigorous examinations, obviously.

[Josquius]

The point isn't to properly handle sick notes and actually attempt to do whats best for patient health.
Its to get as many people as possible off the sick no matter whether they're actually ill or not.
See also: Daniel Blake and the Tory benefits reforms.


The whole film uploaded to youtube but the call is in the opening minute... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiiOHvyBEQY

[HVC]

Never got the obsession with sick time. Either you get one person perhaps slacking, or you chance getting more people in the office sick. Second outcome seems worse to me. And besides, if someone is slacking then chances they're doing more wrong than just calling in sick and are underperforming so you fire them... we'll, from a NA perspective I guess, don't know how easy it is to fire someone over yonder.