{"id":235864,"date":"2025-02-10T17:49:06","date_gmt":"2025-02-10T17:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/10\/king-charles-makes-rare-joint-visit-with-keir-starmer-and-angela-rayner\/"},"modified":"2025-02-10T17:49:06","modified_gmt":"2025-02-10T17:49:06","slug":"king-charles-makes-rare-joint-visit-with-keir-starmer-and-angela-rayner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/10\/king-charles-makes-rare-joint-visit-with-keir-starmer-and-angela-rayner\/","title":{"rendered":"King Charles makes rare joint visit with Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner"},"content":{"rendered":"
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King Charles has given Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer a guided tour of his environmentally friendly, sustainable housing project in Cornwall, in a rare joint visit.<\/p>\n

Deputy PM and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner was also part of this unusual, high-powered gathering, as they toured houses, a school and orchard in Nansledan.<\/p>\n

The King wanted to show them a project that brings together traditional building materials, sustainable living and training projects. But as monarch the King has to avoid getting drawn into party politics.<\/p>\n

Building new homes is a priority for the government with its target of building 1.5 million new homes<\/a> by 2029.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The King regularly meets the prime minister for a weekly audience and they are said to have a good relationship. There also seems to be a good rapport between the King and Angela Rayner.<\/p>\n

But it’s very unusual for them take part in an engagement like this together.<\/p>\n

“I was really surprised to see all three of them,” said Rory Bendle, who was helping in the gardens at Nansledan when the visitors arrived.<\/p>\n

In his role as head of state, the monarch is expected to avoid straying into party politics.<\/p>\n

As Prince of Wales, Charles had been vocal on his views on architecture and other issues, with accusations of meddling, as he wrote to ministers in so-called “black spider” memos<\/a>, named after his style of handwriting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Monday’s trip to Cornwall was a “joint initiative” between the King and prime minister, following discussions between them on their shared interest in housing, according to royal sources.<\/p>\n

The King had highlighted his own housing development and had offered to show around Sir Keir, with Monday’s visit the first date that could be arranged.<\/p>\n

Angela Rayner, as secretary of state for housing, communities and local government, also came for a first-hand view of this style of building.<\/p>\n

The trio met Nansledan residents and visited local businesses, saw a community kitchen which provides training and skills, visited a primary school and saw an orchard, which provides locally-grown food and supports 45 jobs.<\/p>\n

On questions of accommodation, one of the children at the school in Nansledan asked: “Do you live in Buckingham Palace?”<\/p>\n

Another young pupil called to him: “King Charles, King Charles” and then tried a more formal approach, calling out: “King Charles III.”<\/p>\n

Nansledan, near Newquay, was launched in 2014 as a “human-scale” housing development that drew on the King’s environmental principles, providing green spaces, using local materials and training people in building skills.<\/p>\n

So far there are 840 houses built out of an intended 3,700, in a project that began when Charles was Prince of Wales and owned the Duchy of Cornwall.<\/p>\n

The Duchy of Cornwall is an estate, mostly in the South West, which provides a private income for the Prince of Wales. The most recent annual income was almost \u00a324m.<\/p>\n

Housing is a key issue for the government – under pressure to increase the volume of homes being built and to improve the affordability.<\/p>\n

Rayner, interviewed on BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg this weekend, said she was determined to achieve the promise of an extra 1.5 million homes.<\/p>\n

“There are no excuses to not build those homes that people desperately need,” she said.<\/p>\n

“And we mean business on this, because far too many people are not getting these homes.”<\/p>\n

Gillian Keegan, a former Conservative MP and education secretary, argued the previous government had made progress but warned that the pace of building remained “too slow”.<\/p>\n

The importance of teaching skills, on display at Nansledan, was also relevant, as the construction industry has warned that housebuilding targets will be blocked by a lack of staff.<\/p>\n

Building firms have blamed several factors including a skills shortage, an ageing workforce and Brexit for the shrinking pool of construction workers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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King Charles has given Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer a guided tour of his environmentally friendly, sustainable housing project in Cornwall, in a rare joint visit. Deputy PM and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner was also part of this unusual, high-powered gathering, as they toured houses, a school and orchard in Nansledan. The King wanted to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/087e\/live\/86dba590-e7c5-11ef-a697-15c17ea31ce4.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[603],"tags":[841,8818,14639,3959,4326,9322,842,3960,1690],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235864"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235866,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235864\/revisions\/235866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}