Tories to pledge to scrap Environment Agency and Natural England

The Conservatives will pledge measures they claim would cut the price of a new home by £50,000, including . Photograph: Maureen McLean/Alamy Stock Photo View image in fullscreen The Conservatives will pledge measures they claim would cut the price of a new home by £50,000, including . Photograph: Maureen McLean/Alamy Stock Photo Tories to pledge to scrap Environment Agency and Natural England Shadow chancellor will also promise to scrap affordable homes regulations as part of strategy to refocus on growth The Conservatives will announce a bonfire of regulations including abolishing affordable homes and community funding rules as well as scrapping Natural England and the Environment Agency. The shadow chancellor, Andrew Griffith, will say the party intends to “streamline regulations” that protect nature and oblige developers to include affordable homes and community services such as GP surgeries, to speed up infrastructure and housebuilding. The announcements on Monday are a signal that the party intends to refocus on the economy, an area where it has made relatively little progress in the polls. View image in fullscreen Andrew Griffith arrives on the first day of the Conservative conference in Birmingham on Sunday. He will say the party intends to ‘streamline regulations’. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPATory strategists believe there is a major opening to make gains against Reform and Labour, given the limited focus on growth from Andy Burnham and the chancellor, John Healey, at the Labour conference last week. Return of the nasty party? Badenoch walks tightrope with ‘punch down’ policies The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, published a new tract on Sunday called The Right Way, which she said would be the bedrock that underpinned the party’s policy development before the next election. Polls have the party still trailing third behind Labour and Reform UK. Introducing the document – inspired ’s The Right Approach from 1976 – Badenoch said the Conservatives still expected to win the next election and needed to “hit the ground running … We will need to be ready from day one, having already shown people what kind of government we are going to be.” “Keir Starmer didn’t have a plan. That’s why he’s gone,” she said. “Andy Burnham doesn’t have one either and that is why I know the announcements he is making will all come to naught. We have to be different, different from Labour, and different from the party we were two years ago.” In a slew of announcements at the Conservative party conference on Monday, the Tories will pledge measures that they claim would cut the price of a new home by £50,0000, including scrapping net zero regulations on housebuilding, such as the Future Homes Standard, which requires all new homes in England to be zero-carbon ready.