Mayors will be given sweeping powers to unblock planning delays for major building projects in England, Angela Rayner has announced, as she promised a “devolution by default” approach to handing down authority from Whitehall.
The pledge set out in the white paper to be unveiled this week will give regions more planning powers over housing numbers and will identify key developments and infrastructure needed to support growth, from roads to major junctions, water reservoirs, freight and logistics.
The document will propose creating strategic authorities across England to hold new devolved powers, though the organisational shake-up is likely to cause a backlash from smaller district councils.
The drive is part of a major building push across departments, led by Rayner, who is the housing, communities and local government secretary, along with the energy secretary, Ed Miliband. The devolution announcement comes a week after Rayner set out a major overhaul of national planning policy to give English councils mandatory targets to build 370,000 homes a year.
Though Rayner will promise on Monday that more decisions will be put in the hands of people with “skin in the game”, there will still be top-down targets to push areas to meet housing and development demand and to stop local objections from blocking projects of strategic importance.
It follows Miliband’s energy plan that will for the first time designate onshore wind among those nationally significant infrastructure projects and will involve centralised planning of the energy system.
Miliband told the Guardian that ministers believed the building drive, especially for clean energy, would ultimately be politically popular rather than controversial. “I am confident the British public support the drive to clean, secure renewable power,” he said. “People know it is right for energy security and for climate.
“Every solar panel we install, every wind turbine we put up, every piece of grid we build makes us more secure as a country, getting us off the rollercoaster of fossil fuel markets, controlled by petrostates and dictators.”
One government insider said Rayner and Miliband, two of the cabinet ministers most often briefed against, had shown they were the ones prepared to put themselves on the frontline of the government’s “build, build, build” agenda. Both cabinet ministers have told allies they are prepared to take on the short-term political pain and local pressures that might arise from building millions of homes.
Miliband is said to feel similarly about energy infrastructure. A Labour source said: “We know that some of this infrastructure might have some opponents in the short term, but the polling shows that the majority of the British people support our drive to make this country energy secure. Working people paid the price for our dependence on fossil fuel markets and we will do what is needed to protect family finances.”
Rayner will say that devolved powers for regions will be formalised and not agreed on a case-by-case basis with Whitehall. “Our English devolution white paper will be a turning point when we finally see communities, people and places across England begin to take back control over the things that matter to them,” she will say in a speech to mayors and local government leaders.
“Devolution will no longer be agreed at the whim of a minister in Whitehall, but embedded in the fabric of the country, becoming the default position of government.”
The white paper will set out proposals to create “strategic authorities” across England, bringing together councils in areas where people live and work “to avoid duplication and give our cities and regions a bigger voice”.
Responding to the announcement, Louise Gittins, the chair of the Local Government Association, agreed that “moving funding and power from Whitehall to local leaders is needed”, adding: “Devolution is not an end in itself and cannot distract from the severe funding pressures that are pushing local services to the brink.”
Mayors will also have powers allowing them to intervene in planning applications of potential strategic importance, the Guardian understands.
The reorganisation of the different tiers of local government has caused some alarm from smaller district councils, with warnings it will lead to a period of turmoil which will prevent councils from focusing on local services.
Hannah Dalton, a councillor and vice-chair of the District Councils’ Network, said: “We’re concerned that any creation of mega-councils will prove the opposite of devolution, taking powers away from local communities, depriving tens of millions of people of genuinely localised decision-making and representation.
“Little evidence exists that past local government reorganisation has saved money. We are concerned that, far from making local government more efficient and more effective, reorganisation would have the opposite effect.”
It came as Keir Starmer was set to travel to Norway to announce plans for a green energy deal with the country before attending a defence summit in Estonia on a two-day trip to northern Europe.
The prime minister will travel to a cross-border carbon capture site and meet his Norwegian counterpart, Jonas Gahr Støre, to discuss the agreement, which No 10 said both leaders aim to sign in spring 2025.
Starmer said the energy partnership with Norway, which has a border with Russia, would help to boost growth and protect against spikes in international energy prices such as those that followed the invasion of Ukraine.
