Angela’s new rules won’t work
In May 2025 Angela Rayner proposed that developers would be fined, or have their land confiscated, if they failed to complete developments on time.
Like so many ideas that appear good (or even populist) on the surface (like direct wealth taxes) they fall apart under closer scrutiny. The devil always lies in the detail of specifics.
We support what Angela is trying to do - she is absolutely right that something needs to be done about land banking and stalled developments.
However, her new “rules” won’t work because there will always be excuses:
Developers frequently don’t hold the land. They may not pay the original freeholder ahead of development and they may not transfer the freehold into their own name. They often retain a legally binding “option” to purchase but may pay in stages during development – eventually transferring the freehold of each new home to the new occupier. This becomes horrendously complicated and lawyers love it.
There may be a shortage of skilled labour – increasingly so since Brexit. Whose fault is it that we don’t have enough skilled electricians, plasterers, joiners, plumbers, roofers, heating engineers, bricklayers etc? Whose fault is it that our education system still puts far too much emphasis on academic subjects?
Bad weather slows down development.
Lack of availability of materials.
Local Authorities, or government, moving the goal posts with more regulations.
“Unforeseen circumstances” (which used to be called “acts of god”) which bring developments to a temporary halt.
Developers want to sit on part of the land until the price goes up so they can charge more for homes during the later stages of development.
Who is going to sit round a table, with lawyers on both sides, sorting this mess out?
Governments make up rules in the full knowledge that they will be broken, have no effect and will be impossible to enforce.
It is 100% certain that these rules will be ineffective, they won’t speed up development and, in 20 years time, not a single developer will have had land seized. (How are you going to seize land when the developer is not the registered freeholder?) They also involve a huge amount of time and expense for no real purpose - a bureaucratic job creation scheme with time and money that could be used for more beneficial things.
Please Angela, there is a really simple way to end land banking and to speed up development – it is called Land Value Tax.
Land changes value at each stage of development:
when it is zoned or marked for possible development,
when an option to purchase is taken out between a freeholder and a developer,
when outline planning permission is given,
when full planning permission is given.
Each time the value changes the LVT due will change. This will be automatic since the Value Office Agency (VOA - soon to become part of HMRC) will be notified at each stage.
The registered freeholder (original landholder or developer) will be paying LVT on the current value – which doesn’t change much, if at all, between the time full planning permission is granted and the time when the first occupier moves in – so developers will be paying the maximum LVT and will be incentivised to get the job done.
Angela, we support what you are trying to do, but please look at a simple way to do it – Land Value Tax is simple, fair and impossible to avoid. Unfortunately your rules are complicated, unfair and very easy to avoid. Developers aren’t daft – they have decades of experience dealing with “rules” (and with politicians) – and they have good lawyers!