The prime minister has been forced to delay the start of her “Operation Rolling Thunder” blitz of pro-growth reforms after failing to agree a deregulation plan with Jacob Rees-Mogg, her business secretary.

According to the Times

Planning reforms have also been pushed back until next month, in a sign of disarray in agreeing the policies that Liz Truss insists will show how growth can square the circle of lower taxes and better public services……

[…..The programme of reform announcements had been nicknamed “Operation Rolling Thunder” by some officials in a reference to the US bombardment of Vietnam, although the name is not now in use after the market turmoil provoked by last month’s mini-budget.

It is now referred to as “Operation Shitstorm” by many, with the government so far struggling to nail down specific policies. ….]

And don’t mention the “this not a budget” next fiscal event – Owl

A correspondent writes:

Simon Clarke, the levelling up secretary, not only threatens to water down environmental protections but equally threatens to water down affordable home requirements across England.

In his plans, Clarke is pushing for developers in England to be given “greater flexibility on affordable housing requirements”.

East Devon is facing an affordable housing crisis. A report by Devon Home Choice in March 2021, says more than 2,618 households in the district were registered as in need of social housing in East Devon.

We have seen more and more house building in East Devon. The reason sold to us was that the country needed “social housing” and housing developments would provide them.

Has all this house building reduced the numbers needed?

How many of Exmouth’s needs for 607 affordable homes have been provided?

Do the developers in Exmouth need to be given “greater flexibility on affordable housing requirements”. 

3West Developments Ltd, a Woodbury-based developer of Goodmores Farm managed, with the present policies in place, to reduce the numbers. In a green wedge, extant Local Plan Policy required 49% of the proposed development to be affordable dwellings, amounting to 88 . What is being built? Just 5 % or 16 houses now agreed due to the developer pleading non-viability. This is a development of 298 houses.

“Greater flexibility” could result in numbers counted on one hand.

Who benefits from this?

A new partnership to help nature’s recovery and improve sustainable stewardship has been formed by Natural England and the University of Exeter.

www.bbc.co.uk

Image source, Paul Glendell / Natural England

The partnership said its activities, initially over three years, would focus on understanding environmental change.

It was hoped the work would restore landscapes and improve them for people and wildlife, it added.

The organisations had already worked on more than 60 joint research projects over the last 10 years, they said.

Professor Lisa Roberts, vice chancellor of the University of Exeter, said it was “the critical decade in which we must tackle the environment and climate emergency”.

She added: “The University of Exeter has brought together more than 1,400 researchers working on the environment and climate, and, through this partnership, we will use our research power to protect nature and landscapes.”

Dr Tim Hill, Natural England’s chief scientist, said the project was already “building on years of close working on a wide range of projects” with the university.

He said working with the university would significantly further aims of “moving from being an evidence-based organisation to being an evidence-led organisation”.

Government plans to slash requirements on developers to build affordable homes amount to a betrayal of more than a million families on housing waiting lists and will be “devastating” to rural communities where young people already struggle to find places to live, campaigners have warned.

Andrew Woodcock www.independent.co.uk 

The CPRE countryside charity said that the proposals being considered by housing secretary Simon Clarke would “turbocharge the conversion of the countryside into a millionaires’ playground of second homes and weekend retreats”.

Meanwhile, environmentalists voiced dismay at suggestions that an effective moratorium on developments near fragile wetlands could be lifted.

A letter leaked to The Times revealed that Mr Clarke is proposing to increase from 10 houses to 40 or 50 the maximum size of a developments which can be built without any requirement on builders to include affordable homes.

Housing charity Shelter said the move would cut the number of affordable homes delivered under the rule by 20 per cent – or more than 560 properties a year.

The cut would come at a time when 1.2m households are on waiting lists for social housing in England and just 6,051 affordable properties were constructed last year.

The charity’s director of campaigns Osama Bhutta said prime minister Liz Truss had no right to “betray over a million households stuck on social housing waiting lists by slashing the already tiny number of social homes that get built”.

“The government should be doing all it can to build the stable, genuinely affordable homes this country needs, but it’s doing the opposite,” said Mr Bhutta. “The government must change its mind, it can do it now or do it after grasping the anger of millions of people.”

And CPRE CEO Tom Fyans warned: “Housing sites in rural areas are typically small, which means the supply of affordable and social homes could be choked off altogether.

“It would consign thousands of key workers and young families to the margins of society, turbocharging the conversion of the countryside into a millionaires’ playground of second homes and weekend retreats.”

Reducing the number of new affordable homes will be “self-defeating” because it will result in fewer new builds overall and reduce the contribution of house-building to growth, said Mr Fyans.

“The government seems intent on repeating failed housing policies and laying the blame on the planning system and environmental protections,” he said. “The reality is that our rural communities are crying out for more – not less – homes for social rent and genuinely affordable prices to prevent destitution and homelessness.”

Mr Clarke’s Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities(DLUHC) declined to comment on his plans. A government spokesperson said only: “The government is committed to exploring policies that build the homes people need, deliver new jobs, support economic development and boost local economies.”

But Ms Truss’s official spokesperson confirmed that changes to the affordable housing threshold were under consideration.

“We want to keep it under review to make sure we’re delivering the new homes we need, while not discouraging the development of homes on small sites and by small builders,” he said.

Shadow housing secretary Lisa Nandy responded: “The Tories crashed the economy. It led to soaring mortgage rates, rents, energy bills and food prices. Their answer now is less affordable housing. It beggars belief.

“Labour has set out plans to support people onto the housing ladder, including giving first-time buyers first dibs on new developments, as well as building a new generation of affordable and council houses and giving tenants greater security with a new Renters’ Charter.”

And Alicia Kennedy, the director of pressure group Generation Rent, said that the 1.2m households on waiting lists included 100,000 children living in temporary accommodation.

“By letting developers only build homes for the market, the people most in need of a decent, stable home will keep waiting in miserable conditions,” said Ms Kennedy. “The government needs to explain how it is going to deliver enough homes to fix homelessness and bring down rents.”

The PM’s spokesperson also confirmed that ministers are considering the relaxation of rules restricting development in designated parts of Norfolk, Hampshire, Devon and the northeast to protect the health of wetlands.

Currently, new developments are barred in designated areas if they are likely to increase levels of the nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus in the water, which can cause excess algae growth and reduced food supplies for protected species.

Environmental groups are concerned over the potential damage to natural sites and wildlife if the controls are lifted.

Paul de Zylva of Friends of the Earth said: “Ending this moratorium would be a significant blow to our natural world.

“On the one hand the government claims it wants to stop sewage harming our rivers and freshwaters, yet on the other, it appears to be planning to allow new housing developments that could pollute our wetlands.

“We should be planning to build a greener, better future with high quality homes fit for the challenges of the 21st century – we won’t get there with poorly regulated housing developments.”

Ms Truss’s spokesperson said: “The prime minister has talked about some of her concerns about nutrient restrictions leading to an effective moratorium on new housing in some parts of the country, so that is something we want to look at.

“Obviously a strong environment and a strong economy go hand-in-hand and we have legally-binding targets as part of the Environment Act, which we adhere to.”

Who said that?

Liz Truss in 2018 as chief secretary to the Treasury, speaking at the LSE.

Is there any constancy in her ideas and beliefs?

The Mirror has the embarrassing footage here

The International Monetary Fund has added to pressure on Liz Truss’ government to U-turn on unfunded tax cuts announced in last month’s mini-budget, saying changes in policy would help calm jittery financial markets.

Larry Elliott www.theguardian.com 

On a day when fresh action by the UK central bank failed to halt the upward move in government borrowing costs, the Washington-based IMF said a shift in policy from Truss and her chancellor would “change the trajectory” of interest rates.

The IMF said the Bank and the Treasury were “like two people trying to steer a car in different directions” as it highlighted the turbulence in markets caused by the chancellor’s 23 September package. “That’s not going to work very well,” said the Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the IMF’s economic counsellor.

The comments came after fresh action by Threadneedle Street to prevent a “fire sale” of UK government bonds – or gilts – by pension funds caught out by the sharp increase in interest rates in the past two and a half weeks.

Citing a “material risk” to financial stability, the central bank launched the second expansion for its emergency scheme in as many days with a promise to buy index-linked gilts – securities where the interest rate moves up and down with inflation.

In the final week of the scheme, which is due to expire on Friday, it stepped up its efforts to smooth febrile market conditions by buying more than £3.3bn of UK government debt in its single biggest daily market intervention.

Despite efforts in Westminster and the City to smooth over turmoil in the markets unleashed by the mini-budget, leading finance industry figures said the Bank could be forced to extend its emergency scheme beyond this week to prevent a “doom loop” from re-emerging in the bond market.

Speaking at an event in Washington on Tuesday, the Bank’s governor, Andrew Bailey, said Threadneedle Street had no plans to continue with bond buying after the end of this week, adding that his message to the pension industry was: “You’ve got three days left now and you’ve got to sort it out.”

Borrowing costs on long-term government debt rose on Tuesday despite the Bank’s interventions, remaining at levels close to the peak seen in the market turmoil after the mini-budget.

Pensions industry bosses said an extension until the chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng delivered his debt-cutting plans to the Commons on 31 October could be required. Sir John Gieve, a former Bank deputy governor for financial stability, said it was likely to extend the scheme for at least a couple of weeks, while warning that turbulence was directly linked to the chancellor’s unfunded tax cuts.

“He’s actually got to now produce a set of projections which add up,” he said.

The IMF has welcomed Kwarteng’s decision to scrap plans to abolish the 45% income tax rate paid by those earning more than £150,000 and will make a fresh assessment of the UK after Kwarteng’s fiscal statement.

But concerns over the UK and the possible knock-on effects from the turmoil to other countries were voiced at press conferences to launch two flagship IMF publications – the world economic outlook and the global financial stability review.

Gourinchas, responsible for the WEO, said fiscal policy – the tax and spending decisions made by the Treasury – should be aligned with actions taken by the Bank to bring inflation down from a near 40-year high.

The IMF had pencilled in a sharp slowdown in UK growth from 3.6% this year to 0.3% in 2023 before the mini-budget. Growth would be raised “somewhat” but at the expense of making the fight against inflation more complicated.

Tobias Adrian, the IMF’s financial counsellor, said some of the market reaction since 23 September had been “disorderly”, adding that a different fiscal policy would take pressure off the Bank.

“A change in fiscal policy would change the trajectory of interest rates going forward,” Adrian said.

“The change in fiscal policy changed the expectations of monetary policy and meant the Bank of England would have to raise interest rates that much more to bring inflation back to its mandated target.”

Asked whether the only way to solve the UK’s financial markets problems was to reverse the mini-budget, Adrian said: “A shift in fiscal policy would certainly change the trajectory in yields”.

Kwarteng announced £45bn of tax cuts plus energy price curbs for consumers and businesses in his mini-budget, and is working on new proposals designed to reassure markets that the government finances are sound.

Although the chancellor U-turned on plans to abolish the 45p rate of income tax on higher earners, he moved ahead on Tuesday with a cut in taxes on dividends worth £600m for wealthy investors.

Struggling households will however be forced to wait until the end of October to find out whether the government will give the green light to a rise in welfare payments in line with inflation, or whether they will be subject to a real-terms cut amid the cost of living crisis.

Kwarteng stressed to the Commons that “no decisions have been made”. However, the wait for clarity was criticised by Save the Children, which said it was unfair pensioners had been assured their income would rise at least with inflation while parents and carers of children in poverty faced an agonising delay.