Mayors new powers, USA News (England): Mayors across England are to be handed additional powers which Chancellor John Healey says will make the most of “untapped and wasted” potential in cities and regions outside Westminster.
Mr Healey is expected to use Wednesday’s Budget to inject more than £1billion of fresh funding into social and affordable housing across England, pushing total capital investment in the government’s decade-long homes programme beyond the £40billion mark. The Government aims to make it easier for councils to build new homes by extending preferential interest rates on borrowing from central government. A Treasury spokesman stated that families have been locked out of secure and affordable homes for years due to underbuilding.
The housing investment could deliver up to 10,000 new homes, as part of what Prime Minister Andy Burnham has described as the largest post-war council and social housebuilding programme. More than two million council homes have been sold through Right to Buy since the 1980s, yet successive governments failed to replace them adequately. Over 1.3 million households currently sit on social housing waiting lists, while a record 177,500 children are trapped in temporary accommodation—a figure that climbed 5 per cent in just one year. Only 12,250 social rent homes were completed in 2024/25. Private housing costs continue to squeeze families too, with average monthly rents rising 3.8 per cent in the year to September and house prices reaching £273,000.
Mairi MacRae, acting chief executive of Shelter, called the new funding “another important step in the right direction” but urged the Government to go further, saying the autumn Budget is an opportunity to remove unsustainable housing debt from council balance sheets and turbocharge social rent delivery.
Alongside the housing measures, the Chancellor is anticipated to allocate an initial £285million next year to support mayors and local leaders, reducing their dependence on fragmented bidding pots administered from Whitehall. A further £150million will go towards building the capacity of strategic authorities to manage complex investment programmes. From 2028, a new £1.5billion borrowing facility designed in partnership with mayors will give regional leaders greater access to capital for local priorities.
Reactions and Political Context
Prime Minister Burnham remarked that he is calling time on local leaders going cap in hand to Westminster, calling it no way to run a country. Claire Ward, the East Midlands mayor who chairs the UK Mayors Network, welcomed the commitment, while London Mayor Lord Sadiq Khan stated the enhanced investment powers could help unlock transformational infrastructure projects such as the West London Orbital route and extensions to the Bakerloo line and Docklands Light Railway (DLR).
Meanwhile, the Chancellor’s Budget preparations faced a hurdle when Alex Depledge, the Treasury’s entrepreneurship adviser, announced her departure effective Thursday. The Conservative opposition has also pressed Mr Healey regarding military spending targets, urging a path to 3 per cent of GDP by 2030, while Defence Secretary Wes Streeting defended the government’s record and warned that Britain must be ready for war within 1,000 days.
