Conservatives would scrap Natural England and the Environment Agency under Griffith's plan

For an operator, the first question about these pledges is when they could take effect. The Conservatives are still trying to rebuild after their historic defeat at the 2024 general election ^[4]. Kemi Badenoch's 100-page document sets out how the party would act should it return to government by winning the next one ^[3]. Until then the rules come from the current government. Chancellor John Healey said the Budget on 28 October would "give families and businesses a bit of breathing space" ^[10].

The developer levy touches cash first. A single charge would replace both section 106 agreements and the Community Infrastructure Levy ^[7]. The party argues the new charge would remove delays and improve how the money is spent for residents ^[8]. The BBC's account of the plan does not include a rate. A developer agreeing a land price this year, for a site built out after an election, is pricing two possible contribution regimes. Only one of them can be priced today.

Abolishing the two regulators is larger in scope and harder to model. The party has criticised Natural England's role in house building and the Environment Agency's role in flood prevention work ^[13]. It would move their functions into the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs ^[14]. Griffith put the aim in general terms. "Whether it's reservoirs or reactors we need a system of getting infrastructure in this country that really works," he said ^[17].

Mike Clancy, general secretary of Prospect, whose union represents members at both bodies ^[20], rejects the diagnosis. "Conservative budget cuts have left these regulators struggling to perform their vital functions with 'lack of resources' the most common reason for planning delays," he said ^[15]. His remedy: "The solution is to restore their funding to adequate levels, not scrap vital safeguards" ^[16]. The answer to Clancy depends on staffing. If resources are the cause of delay, moving the same functions into Defra changes which body issues a decision. It does not change how many people work the queue, unless the transfer brings staff and money with it.

The savings claim comes from the party itself. The Tories would ditch environmental and energy efficiency regulations, including the future homes standard ^[11], and think the changes could take as much as £50,000 off what it costs to deliver a new home ^[12]. Packaging producers would lose the EPR scheme, which requires firms to cover the cost of collecting, recycling and disposing of the packaging they produce ^[5]. Firms meet those costs under the scheme today.

Over a ten-year horizon, who else backs the pledges matters. Griffith calls the package the "most ambitious deregulation project in a generation" ^[2], and Reform UK said the Tories were "copying our policies" ^[9]. If Reform's claim extends to the regulators and the levy, the direction has backing in two opposition parties. In my view that would justify more weight in a long-range compliance plan than one party's recovery alone would earn.

Platform positions also move. Pressed on the pensions triple lock, which Prime Minister Andy Burnham has proposed changing, Griffith said: "We are going to keep it" ^[18]. In 2021, as a backbencher, he wrote that the triple lock was "unfair" ^[19].