Rishi Sunak gets an enthusiastic welcome from ‘excited’ family on visit to housing development – but politely turns down a tour of their home
Rishi Sunak enjoyed an enthusiastic welcome as he toured a housing estate in Norwich today.
Mr Sunak was greeted by a man who said he was ‘so excited to see you’, before getting the PM to pose for a selfie with his family.
The resident even tried to get the premier to come into his abode for a look around – saying: ‘Do you want to step into my house for a second?’
But Mr Sunak politely turned down the offer, insisting: ‘We’re just running around trying to visit some stuff.’
The warm response will be a boost for Mr Sunak as he struggles with dire polls and the prospect of another tough by-election in October.
A Redfield & Wilton Strategies survey this week showed his personal rating standing at a grim minus 15.
On a visit to a housing estate in Norwich today Rishi Sunak was greeted by a man who said he was ‘so excited to see you’, before getting the PM to pose for a selfie with his family
The resident even tried to get the premier to come into his abode for a look around – saying: ‘Do you want to step into my house for a second?’
The PM was visiting the Taylor Wimpey site to hail the ditching of old EU housing development pollution rules.
He said the ‘nutrient neutrality’ regulations left over from before Brexit were ‘disproportionate and poorly targeted’.
Scrapping them will boost the economy by £18billion and support tens of thousands of jobs, he argued.
Environmentalists have raised fears that downgrading the rules is a ‘licence to pollute’.
But Mr Sunak insisted that the government would inject funding into other measures to keep water clean.
‘Today’s announcement will unlock 100,000 new homes in communities where people want those homes to be built.
‘That’s fantastic for young, first-time buyers.
‘Also, it will provide an £18billion boost to our economy and support tens of thousands of jobs. We’re able to do this because previously it was a disproportionate and poorly targeted old EU ruling that blocked these homes.
‘Thankfully we can now reverse that, and alongside that we are investing hundreds of millions of pounds to continue protecting and enhancing our precious natural environment.’
Mr Sunak said he wanted to reach Net Zero in a way that does not hammer struggling Brits.
‘Of course we want to get to Net Zero, but we just want to do that in a proportionate and pragmatic way that does not unnecessarily burden families and households in the process.
‘We have got a proud track record on tackling climate change, we have reduced our emissions faster than pretty much any developed country.’
Highlighting recent Government investment in carbon capture technology, as well as the Plan for Water, Mr Sunak said: ‘We are taking strong steps to protect our environment, reduce our emissions but do that in a proportionate and pragmatic way that protects families too.’
Housebuilding has been a difficult issue for the Tories, with deep splits between traditional shire MPs – who often support tight planning rules – and those who represent Red Wall seats – who tend to back extra building.
Current nutrient neutrality rules prevent developers from building houses in protected areas when it would add harmful nutrients into rivers and lakes, because the nutrients can cause algal blooms that deprive other plants and animals of light and oxygen.
Under legislation derived from the EU, Natural England currently instructs 62 local authority areas to require that new developments are nutrient neutral in their area, meaning developers must demonstrate and fund mitigation to win planning approval.
This requirement will be watered down to become guidance under the changes being proposed.
Instead, changes will see the financial burden to mitigate nutrient pollution for new housing shifted from developers to taxpayers, with the Government saying it would double investment in its nutrient mitigation scheme, being run by Natural England, to £280million. And a further £166million will be allocated for slurry infrastructure grants.
Mr Sunak posed with another family
The Government says it intends to work with the housebuilding industry to ensure that larger developers make what it describes as an appropriate and fair contribution to the scheme over the coming years.
No detail on that has been announced, but the Government said it is discussing how to do so with the Home Builders Federation.
The government estimates that the change will mean an extra 100,000 homes being built by 2030.
The changes are being proposed via an amendment to the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill which is currently going through the House of Lords, with the Government saying it could see additional homes being built in a matter of months.
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