A new report from Policy Exchange, a centre-right thinktank, has called on Labour to embrace ‘beauty’ as a key plank of its growth and housebuilding programme. It follows the recent announcement that references to the beauty agenda – a key priority of the previous Conservative government – would be removed from the National Planning Policy Framework, to be replaced by a commitment instead to “high-quality design”.

The Tories’ commitment to beauty in the built environment, spearheaded by former Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove, had grown out of the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission. The commission, co-chaired by Roger Scruton and Nicholas Boys Smith, had argued that embracing beauty could help break down resistance to new housing.

Titled Beauty and Socialism: How the Left can put Beauty back into Britain, the report is authored by former BD architectural correspondent Ike Ijeh. It makes the case that, rather than being the preserve of the political right, ‘beauty’ was a key priority of early socialists such as William Morris. Ijeh claims that “beauty is not simply about making things prettier, but… delves deep into a proud Labour heritage of seeking to improve living and working conditions for the poor while giving them unfettered access to the quality, refinement, and resilience that less progressive ideologies had historically reserved for the rich.”

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