Rachel Reeves will pledge to “hard-wire” net zero into the planning system to speed up the construction of onshore wind turbines and other green energy sources.

The shadow chancellor will use her Labour Party conference speech to announce a strategy to fast-track infrastructure such as wind turbines, pylons and solar farms through the planning system and protect developers from legal challenge.

No.

Reform of the planning system, yes, of course. Our favoured idea is to blow it up. Proper blow up, Kablooie. In the absence of that surely we should welcome some reform though?

Some reforms, yes, others now. The reason for the no here is that the reform is to be only for those favoured activities. Which isn’t the way to do it at all.

Even by the mere mention of reform being necessary then we have an admission that the current system does not work. But it does not work for everything, not just for the proto-Chancellor’s favoured list of activities.

It doesn’t work for net zero infrastructure, OK. But it also doesn’t work for fossil fuel infrastructure, for car plants, car battery plants, for housing, for supermarkets, for anything at all. The solution is not to introduce privilege - literally, private law - for favoured activities. It’s to reform the planning system for everything to that same level we’re going to have it for those favoured activities.

Special planning rules for what the Chancellor likes, no, better planning rules for everything, yes.