General Election 2024 | Comparing Conservative, Labour, and Lib Dem policies

With just a few days to go before the public heads to the polls, here’s a quick recap of the essential points for those in the built environment from each of the main parties’ manifestos.

What follows is by no means a complete look, but should provide a decent snapshot of the Conservative Party, Labour Party, and Liberal Democrats’ approach towards housing, planning, transport, and infrastructure.

Most of the text comes from the manifestos themselves, some of it has been paraphrased for ease. You can find their manifestos in full using the links below:

• Conservative manifesto
• Labour manifesto
• Liberal Democrats manifesto

HOUSING

How many homes are you building?

Conservatives

• 1.6m new homes

Labour

• 1.5m new homes over next parliament

Liberal Democrats

• Increase the number of new homes being built to 380,000 a year – including 150,000 social homes a year

How are you going to encourage more homes to be built?

Conservatives

• Abolish EU nutrient neutrality rules
• Create a fast-track planning route for homes on brownfield land in the 20 largest UK cities – this includes Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Sheffield, and Middlesbrough
• Renew the Affordable Homes Programme

Labour

• Update National Policy Planning Framework to restore mandatory housing targets
• Take tough action to ensure planning authorities have up-to-date local plans
• Fund more planning officers through an increase in the Stamp Duty surcharge paid by non-UK residents
• Build New Towns
• Require all combined and mayoral authorities to have a strategic plan for housing growth in their areas – and also give combined authorities new planning powers to better use grant funding
• Improve the Affordable Homes Programme
• Review Right to Buy discounts
• Reform compulsory purchase compensation rules so that fair compensation is given rather than inflated ones

Liberal Democrats

• Give local authorities the power to end the Right to Buy in their areas
• Build 10 garden cities
• Reform the Land Compensation Act of 1961 so that local authorities can buy land for housing on its current use value
• Allow local authorities to set their own planning fees
• Encourage the use of rural exception sites to encourage more rural housing
• Add financial incentives for brownfield development – and ensure that affordable and social housing is included in these residential schemes
• Introduce a ‘use it or lose it’ planning permission policy to stop developers from sitting on projects
• Invest in skills, training, and MMC

What else are you going to do?

Conservatives

• Make the abolition of Stamp Duty for homes up to £425,000 for first-time buyers permanent
• Introduce a new Help to Buy scheme that provides an equity loan of up to 20% towards the cost of a new-build home to first-time buyers
• Require councils to put aside land for local and SME builders and to lift Section 106 requirements for smaller schemes
• Complete the leasehold reform process
• Pass Renters Reform Bill
• Create a dedicated taskforce in Homes England to invest in regeneration and building homes in rural areas
• Provide councils with powers they need to manage the growth of holiday lets

Labour

• End the farce of entire developments being sold to international investors before they are built
• Introduce a permanent and comprehensive mortgage guarantee scheme for first-time buyers
• Invest £6.6bn over the next parliament to upgrade 5m homes to be more energy efficient

Liberal Democrats

• Introduce a 10-year emergency upgrade programme to give free insulation and heat pumps for those on low incomes
• Ban no-fault evictions, make three-year tenancies the default, and create a national register of licensed landlords
• Abolish residential leaseholds, cap ground rents
• Trial Community Land Auctions – which would ensure local communities receive part of the benefits of development in their areas and that it funds local services
• Integrate infrastructure and public service delivery into the planning process
• Introduce a Rent to Own model for social housing where tenants would own it outright after 30 years
• Provide communities more control over the number of second homes and short-term lets in their area, with the ability to increase council tax up to 500% on second homes and introduce a Stamp Duty surcharge on overseas residents buying these properties

What about Green Belt?

Conservatives

• Will retain “cast-iron commitment” to stop uncontrolled development on Green Belt

Labour

• Encourage brownfield first, but will explore releasing lower quality Green Belt land for development

Liberal Democrats

• The Green Belt was not mentioned in the Liberal Democrats manifesto

PLANNING

Moving past the housing side of things, what do you have in store for planning changes?

Conservatives

• Reform the planning system to deliver fast-track permissions for farming infrastructure

Labour

• Updates to NPPF will make it easier to build labs, digital infrastructure, data centres, and gigafactories

Liberal Democrats

• Ensure new developments result in significant biodiversity net gain – with up to a 100% net gain for large developments
• Introduce strategic Land and Sea Use Framework

TRANSPORT

What are you going to do to improve transport in the UK?

Conservatives

• Invest £36bn in local roads, rail, and buses – including £8.3bn to fill potholes and resurface roads
• Provide £1bn to support hundreds of new bus routes across North and Midlands
• Improve accessibility at 100 train stations
• Delivery railway upgrades – including the Energy Coast Line in Cumbria
• Spend £1bn to electrify the North Wales Main Line
• Extend the £2 bus fare cap in England for the duration of the next Parliament
• Introduce Rail Reform Bill to create Great British Railways in the first King’s Speech
• Roll out mobile pay-as-you-go to make contactless tickets nationwide
• Match funding to the Welsh Government for the M4 relief road and third Menai crossing, as well as improvements to the A55 and A483 by Wrexham
• Invest £4.7bn for smaller cities, towns, and rural areas in the North and Midlands for transport improvements, including upgrades to local bus and train stations
• End rules preventing mayors from investing in strategic roads
• Deliver the Conservative Northern Powerhouse Rail plan

Labour

• Fix an additional 1m potholes across England each year of the next Parliament using money saved from deferring the A27 bypass
• Accelerate the roll-out of electric vehicle charging points
• Bring railways into public ownership as existing contracts expire or are broken through failure to deliver
• Introduce a new body – Great British Railways – that will focus on service, investment, day-to-day operations, and passenger improvements for rail travel
• Involve mayors in the process of designing the services in their areas
• Promote and grow the use of rail freight
• Create passenger watchdog
• Lift the ban on municipal ownership of local bus services
• Give mayors the power to create integrated transport systems and promote active travel networks

Liberal Democrats

• Give local authorities the power to restore bus routes and add new ones where it is needed
• Extend electrification of the rail network and improve stations – especially accessibility-wise.
• Reopen smaller train stations
• Deliver Northern Powerhouse Rail
• Create a nationwide active travel strategy
• Provide more funding from the roads budget for local authorities to repair potholes and maintain existing roads
• Establish a new railway agency
• See if the Northern leg of HS2 can be delivered
• Consider introducing an annual pass for all railways
• Accelerate the roll-out of electric vehicle charging points
• Give local authorities the power to introduce networkwide ticketing, like in London
• Try to integrate bus, rail, and light rail tickets into a daily fare cap

INDUSTRY AND INFRASTRUCTURE

What are you planning to improve our industry and infrastructure?

Conservatives

• Invest more than £1.5bn in large-scale computer clusters
• Push forward with the Advanced Manufacturing Plan to provide £4.5bn to secure strategic manufacturing sectors, including automotive, aerospace, life sciences, and clean energy
• Create more freeports and business rates retention zones

Labour

• Establish an Industrial Strategy Council
• Create National Wealth Fund with £7.3bn over the next Parliament to support clean energy and growth missions – with £1.8bn going towards upgrading ports and building supply chains, £1.5b towards gigafactories, £2.5bn towards rebuilding the steel industry, and £500m towards supporting the manufacture of green energy
• Develop a ten-year infrastructure strategy
• Create a National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority to set strategic infrastructure priorities and oversee the delivery of these projects
• Push to have full gigabit and national 5G coverage by 2030
• Upgrade national transmission infrastructure
• Require local growth plans where local authorities will work with employers, universities, industry, and colleges to identify growth sectors in their area and to deliver programmes and infrastructure required to make that happen

Liberal Democrats

• Invest in green infrastructure, innovation, and skills to create good jobs and tackle the climate crisis
• Make gigabit broadband available to every home and business

Let’s talk power specifically. What are your plans?

Conservatives

• Ensure annual licensing rounds for oil and gas production
• Create more gas power stations
• Increase offshore wind capacity
• Build the first two carbon capture and storage clusters in the North West and in Teesside and the Humber
• Approve two new fleets of small modular nuclear reactors within the first 100 days
• Halve the time needed for nuclear reactors to be approved by letting regulators look at projects while designs are being finalised and speeding up planning and environmental approvals
• Deliver a new gigawatt power plant at Wylfa and work with industry to deliver existing projects at Hinkley Point and Sizewell
• Ensure democratic consent for onshore wind
• Support solar but not on the best agricultural land
• Retain the moratorium on fracking

Labour

• Set up Great British Energy, a publicly owned clean power company using funds generated by a windfall tax on oil and gas companies – a total of £8.3bn over the next Parliament
• Double onshore wind power, triple solar power, and quadruple offshore wind power by 2030
• Invest in carbon capture and storage
• Invest in hydrogen and marine energy
• Ensure the UK has enough long-term energy storage
• Push forward with new nuclear power stations such as Sizewell C and small modular nuclear reactors
• Introduce a phased transition in the North Sea away from oil and gas production – not by revoking existing licenses, but by managing existing fields for the entirety of their lifespan and then using the existing offshore infrastructure to enable energy production and storage.

Liberal Democrats

• Invest in renewable power so that 90% of the UK’s electricity is generated from renewable energy sources by 2030
• Remove restrictions on new solar and wind power
• Support investment and innovation in tidal and wave power
• Maintain the ban on fracking
• Ban new coal mines
• Build more grid infrastructure
• Invest in energy storage – including green hydrogen
• Empower local authorities to develop local renewable electricity generation and storage strategies
• Require large energy suppliers to work with community schemes to sell the power they generate to local customers
• Reduce access costs for grid connections
• Reform the energy network to permit local energy grids
• Guarantee that community benefit funds receive a fair share of the money generated by local renewable infrastructure

MISCELLANEOUS

Any updates on devolution and how you’ll interact with local governments?

Conservatives

• Provide city regions with £8.55bn to spend on their own priorities
• Provide every area in England that wants a devolution deal with one by 2030
• Increase devolution powers in the Tees Valley
• Extend the UK Shared Prosperity Fund for another three years

Labour

• Provide councils with multi-year funding settlements rather than doing awards through a constant competitive bidding process

• Deepen devolution settlements with existing combined authorities and expand devolution to more areas

Liberal Democrats

• Champion investment in the Northern Powerhouse, Western Gateway, and Midlands Engine
• Invite local areas to take control of services that matter the most to them, decentralising decision-making from Whitehall
• End top-down reorganisations and councils and elected mayors when are area does not want them

What will you do about business rates?

Conservatives

• Increase the multiplier on distribution warehouses that support online shopping over time

Labour

• Replace the current system with a new model that levels the playing field between high street stores and online retailers

Liberal Democrats

• Reform business rates to help the high street

What else is on your to-do list?

Conservatives

• Move 25,000 more civil servants to offices outside of London
• Continue building 40 hospitals by 2030
• Build four prisons by 2030
• Launch design competition for urban greening, focussed on new quarters to be developed in Leeds
• Make it easier to get permission to plant trees
• Designate a new National Park
• Create Coast to Coast Path and the King Charles III England Coast Path

Labour

• Create nine National River Walks, one in each region of England
• Establish three National Forests in England
• Plant millions of trees
• Build more prisons that are needed
• Deliver the New Hospitals Programme

Liberal Democrats

• Implement a 10-year plan for hospital and primary care estate investment
• Increase school and college funding per pupil above the rate of inflation every year to help invest in new buildings and maintenance
• Turn water companies into public benefit companies, banning bonuses for their bosses until discharges and leaks end, and replace Ofwat with a new regulator with more powers to prevent sewage dumps
• Double the size of the Protected Area Network
• Double woodland cover by 2050
• Plant at least 60m trees a year and increase the use of sustainable wood in construction
• Protect up to a million acres of green space, complete a coastal path, and explore introducing a right to roam for waterways
• Create a new designation of National Nature Parks