Delivering Labour’s Technology and Growth Agenda through Planning – A No-Brainer

I represent one of the most beautiful constituencies in England. Banbury, Chipping Norton, Charlbury, and the North Oxfordshire villages are places where people choose to live, work, and raise families precisely because of their character. As a local MP, I understand instinctively the impulse to protect what we have. But I also understand what happens when protection becomes paralysis. Nowhere is that tension more visible, and more damaging to Labour’s mission of national renewal, than in our planning system’s treatment of mobile infrastructure, the digital highway that enables technological advancement, commerce and connectivity.

In my surgeries, I hear from residents who cannot get a reliable mobile signal in their own homes. I speak with business owners in our market towns whose card machines drop out at the worst possible moments, and from farmers who are unable to use the precision agriculture tools that their competitors overseas now take for granted. These aren’t just minor inconveniences; they are the daily consequences of a planning regime that has failed to keep pace with the technology it is supposed to govern.

For a Labour government elected on a mandate to grow the economy and tackle inequality, digital inclusion is a matter of social justice. The Digital Poverty Alliance estimates that between 13 and 19 million people in the UK experience digital exclusion. This exclusion is disproportionately concentrated in the rural and coastal communities where mobile coverage is weakest and planning barriers are highest.

When we talk about 5G, we aren’t just talking about faster downloads for city dwellers. We are talking about the backbone of the NHS 10-Year Plan, which envisions virtual hospitals and digital-first care that could save the taxpayer nearly £900 million by digitising GP appointments alone. If we allow the digital divide to widen, we are effectively telling rural constituents that the future of public services isn’t for them.

The most striking insight from the recent TYI report, “Small Changes, Big Rewards”, for which I provided a foreword, is that the solutions to these problems are remarkably small. The mobile industry is not calling for a wholesale overhaul of planning law or a massive new pot of public spending. Instead, it is looking at targeted reforms to Permitted Development Rights (PDR) that can be delivered through secondary legislation without consuming precious parliamentary time.

Consider this: 95% of the build programme in the short to medium term involves upgrading existing infrastructure, not erecting new masts in green fields. Yet, the current system often treats a routine antenna upgrade on an existing site with the same suspicion as a brand new development. By simply relaxing antenna caps in protected areas and updating height and width thresholds to reflect modern 5G equipment, we can unlock a tidal wave of private investment at zero cost to the Exchequer.

The report highlights a glaring regional asymmetry. Manchester has become a British leader in connectivity, boasting median 5G speeds of 142.2 Mbps, largely because the local authority proactively engaged with operators and treated digital infrastructure as a strategic priority. Meanwhile, London languishes at 115.1 Mbps, and many rural areas are even further behind.

We need a national policy that makes every authority more like Manchester by default. This includes reforming the Notice to Quit (NTQ) regime. Currently, an 18-month emergency window is often insufficient for operators to replace masts displaced by redevelopment, leading to “signal blackouts” that cost local economies an estimated £6,000 per day. Extending this window to 36 months is a common-sense fix to keep communities connected.

The Prime Minister has been clear: we need to “Build, Baby, Build”. While our bold reforms for housing are welcome, it would be a missed opportunity of historic proportions if we didn’t apply that same reforming energy to digital infrastructure, which will unlock progress in so many of our aims as a government.

The mobile industry is ready to act. Operators have pledged billions in investment, including £11bn from the Vodafone-Three merger and £700m from VMO2, but they are currently being held back by a blockage of bureaucracy.

Independent estimates suggest a full 5G rollout could deliver up to £230bn in economic benefits by 2035. In a time of limited fiscal headroom, these reforms are the definition of a free win; a ‘no-brainer’. They cost the taxpayer nothing, but they provide the high-speed connectivity that will drive productivity, support our public services, and finally bridge the gap between our urban hubs and rural heartlands.

Every day we delay these small, sensible changes, we are choosing slower growth and poorer connectivity for the communities we represent. It is time to update our planning rules, get Britain connected, and enlist technology and communications companies in achieving the change we promised the British people.

 

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