Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has renewed Labour’s rural raid after forcing farmers to sell fields “for less than their potential value”.
Rayner’s Planning & Infrastructure Bill will ensure councils can target fields to build new hospitals, schools and homes through compulsory purchase orders.
The new law will ensure that local authorities can purchase the land for its current value rather than the price given for developed land.
Rayner said: “The Planning and Infrastructure Bill will unleash seismic reforms to help builders get shovels in the ground quicker to build more homes, and the vital infrastructure we need to improve transport links and make Britain a clean energy superpower to protect billpayers.”
However, rural communities believe the move will punish farmers at a time when many wait for inheritance tax changes to come in after April 2026.
Gavin Lane, deputy vice-president of the Country Land and Business Association, said: “We urgently need more affordable housing, but pushing landowners into selling land isn’t the answer.”
Tim Bonner, of the Countryside Alliance, added: “We have been supportive of many of the Government’s changes to planning policy, but giving councils more power to reduce the value of land is a step too far, especially in the context of such a challenging outlook for farmers and the inheritance tax fiasco.
“This is not about people blocking development, it’s about the state paying the market price for land. We need more houses and more economic development, but not at the cost of basic principles.”
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Senior aide to Wes Streeting pleads guilty to indecent exposure as Health Secretary left ‘horrified’
A Labour councillor serving as a senior aide to Wes Streeting has pleaded guilty to two counts of indecent exposure, The Sun reports.
The Health Secretary has been left “horrified” by the news – which saw 33-year-old Sam Gould admit to intentionally exposing his genitals “intending that someone would see them and be caused alarm or distress”.
“I am shocked and horrified by this news and my heart goes out to the victims of these totally abhorrent acts,” he said.
“No one should have to endure this behaviour and I am grateful to the police for taking swift action.
“A disciplinary process has been underway since I was made aware of his arrest at the weekend and, following his guilty plea, I am calling for him to resign as a Redbridge Councillor immediately.
“He has abused my trust, the trust of my team and the trust of my constituents and must now accept the consequences of his actions.”
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