Mandatory housing targets at core of economy-focused king’s speech

Local councils will have to adopt mandatory housing targets within months under planning reforms to be unveiled on Wednesday as part of Keir Starmer’s first king’s speech , which the prime minister says will be focused on economic growth.

Starmer will introduce a package of more than 35 bills on Wednesday, the first Labour prime minister to do so in 15 years, as he looks to put the economy at the centre of his first year in office.

Labour will use the next 12 months to introduce laws on planning reform, devolution and public transport, the prime minister will tell parliament. But with ministers prioritising growth above all other political ambitions, the government will not legislate to reduce the voting age or penalise employers for not training and recruiting British workers .

Starmer said before the speech: “Now is the time to take the brakes off Britain. For too long people have been held back, their paths determined by where they came from – not their talents and hard work.

“I am determined to create wealth for people up and down the country. It is the only way our country can progress, and my government is focused on supporting that aspiration.

“Today’s new laws will take back control and lay the foundations of real change that this country is crying out for, creating wealth in every community and making people better off – supporting their ambitions, hopes and dreams.”

Starmer will introduce his first king’s speech on Wednesday by unveiling a wide array of measures mostly focused on the economy.

At its core will be planning change, with Starmer having pledged that his party would be “builders, not blockers” . In its first week in office, Labour overturned the previous government’s de facto ban on onshore windfarms in an effort to boost the construction of clean energy generation.

The prime minister will announce the next stage of the party’s plans to liberalise the planning system on Wednesday with a bill designed to reimpose mandatory housing targets on local authorities. Michael Gove, the former housing secretary, relaxed those targets last year amid pressure from Tory backbenchers, allowing councils to ignore them if they were deemed to undermine the character of an area.

The government also wants local authorities to work together to identify regional infrastructure needs in an attempt to stop individual authorities blocking plans.

Officials have told the Guardian they will begin a consultation on the new targets in the next two weeks, with a view to having them in place by the autumn.

Angela Rayner, the housing and local government secretary, will oversee the planning proposals as well as a separate bill on English devolution. Local authorities will be required not only to create local housing plans, but also a local growth plan detailing how they intend to support industry and the wider economy in their areas.

Louise Haigh, the transport secretary, will steer bills to renationalise the railways and to allow greater public sector involvement in running local bus networks.

Under the railways bill, rail services will return to public ownership once contracts with private-sector controllers expire. The bill will create an arms-length body called Great British Railways to monitor passenger satisfaction with new systems and to introduce changes such as automatic compensation across the whole network.

The buses bill will give local leaders greater powers to launch publicly owned bus services.

Not all the bills in the package are expected to be economically focused.

Starmer is expected to announce a House of Lords reform bill which could set the mandatory retirement age for the upper chamber at 80. He is also set to resurrect the plan of his predecessor, Rishi Sunak, to bring in a phased smoking ban, which was dropped in the last-minute flurry of legislation passed after the election was called.

Other long-held Labour policies have not made the cut, including the party’s promise to bring the voting age down to 16.

Government insiders said they remained committed to the proposal but that bills to help drive economic growth were the priority this time round. One source suggested that voting age changes could wait until closer to the next election, prompting speculation that the plan may never happen at all.