The Conservatives have returned to familiar ground with plans to cut red tape, a move critics say ignores the safeguards such regulations provide.
Top Tory Andrew Griffith wants to streamline rules that protect the environment and require large developers to provide community projects in areas where they build. One proposal is to scrap net zero requirements on housebuilding, an industry with major carbon emissions.
Housing and environmental safeguards at risk
Fitting houses with solar panels and more efficient heating systems can also lower bills and create jobs in the supply chain, supporters of the rules point out.
Another plan is to scrap rules obliging developers to build a share of affordable housing in big projects and support demands for local services like schools and GP surgeries. These would be replaced with a one-stop levy on developers, details of which are not clear.
Environment agencies targeted
Further proposals include ditching the Environment Agency, which works to prevent sewage dumping in rivers and waterways, manages flood risks and prosecutes illegal polluters. Natural England would also be axed, with both bodies taken back into the Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs.
The Tories also want to expand Heathrow Airport, something they abandoned during the coalition years and later spent years consulting on.
Lessons from Grenfell
Critics note that David Cameron's coalition government pursued an aggressive deregulation agenda, including a rule that for every new policy introduced, two would be cut or changed. The public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire said that anti-red tape drive dominated government thinking, adding that even matters affecting the safety of life were ignored, delayed or disregarded.
The party failed to get the economy firing and speed up housebuilding during its time in office, and is trying to get attention as it flounders in the polls two years on from its worst ever general election defeat. Despite a cheerful mood in Birmingham, Kemi Badenoch's increasing personal popularity is not translating to the party, with Reform squeezing it on the right and the Lib Dems on the left.
