Highlighting the scale of opportunities for the built environment

CIOB’s policy and public affairs team attended Labour’s party conference in Liverpool and the Conservative’s party conference in Birmingham to meet with new minister’s and Members of Parliament following the UK general election (GE) in July 2024.

Ahead of party conference season, we urged caution at the Labour Government’s ambition to build 1.5 million homes over the course of this parliament – approximately 300,000 per year. We warned the construction sector will need urgent support and investment to scale up its capacity and capability to deliver on these lofty ambitions.

To get our message across, we held several events over the course of the conferences, met with policymakers and other stakeholders and attended other relevant events to explore further opportunities for collaboration. 

At Labour:

Paul Gandy, senior vice president of CIOB and chief executive officer of Tilbury Douglas joined the policy and public affairs team at Labour conference and acted as CIOB spokesperson.

On the first evening, the team attended a dinner event with presidents and chief executives of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), primarily to discuss ongoing collaboration and to ensure consistency and alignment on key issues ahead of our ‘fringe events’ taking place on Monday 23 September.

A wet and rainy Monday did not deter the 15,000-plus members and commercial visitors attending a variety of speeches and events at the ACC Liverpool and surrounding area.

CIOB held meetings with several stakeholders, including the Federation of Master Builders (FMB), the New Homes Quality Board (NHQB) and Habinteg Housing Association, mainly as introductions but also to discuss CIOB priorities around improving build quality, raising standards, competence, and enhancing regulations.  

There was also an opportunity to visit the Future Homes Liverpool City Region waterfront house at the ACC which has been constructed and part-assembled off-site using modern methods of construction. The house had been built using a light-gauge steel frame, clad with insulation and brick slips to create a super-insulated, airtight building with an energy performance (EPC) rating of 100%.

The team also attended several fringe events and had the opportunity to ask questions of policy makers and other speakers. One of the events attended, hosted by G15, a group of housing associations, and the New Statesman, featured remarks from former chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee, Clive Betts MP as well as Tom Copley, London’s Deputy Mayor for Housing and Residential Development on the need to invest in the existing housing stock as one part of dealing with the current housing crisis.

The first event we hosted was a panel debate, entitled, ‘how can Labour deliver the high-quality, sustainable homes we need?’ Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Lords Minister for Housing and Local Government) joined Paul Gandy, Senior Vice President of CIOB, Muyiwa Oki, President of RIBA, Justin Young, CEO, RICS and Lindsey Richards, President of RTPI to discuss the topic.

The debate centred on Labour’s housing targets and reforms to the planning system – which CIOB recently responded to. Gandy commented that, whilst Labour’s ambitious housing targets are welcome, greater focus must be placed on building up the supply of new competent workers as well as ensuring certainty in the pipeline to encourage the construction sector to become more productive. He stated the industry will not be able to meet the current targets through traditional build alone and other methods will require investment to scale up the capability in the sector.

Gandy also highlighted several short- and long-term policy recommendations to build up a pipeline of workers, including repurposing the Apprenticeship Levy to be more flexible and advocating for a GCSE for the Built Environment to attract young people to the sector.

Post-event, the team attended further fringe debates on topics including infrastructure delivery and new homes quality and managed to briefly speak to MPs including Luke Myer MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland and Mike Reader MP for Northampton South, with the offer of further briefing on key issues affecting the built environment.

In the evening, RIBA North’s office hosted a joint CIOB, RIBA, RICS and RTPI reception inviting stakeholders attending conference and from the local area. We heard a few short speeches outlining the commitment to joint working and maintaining a collective ‘one voice’ approach on key issues around safety, quality, skills and sustainability for the benefit members and policy makers.

On the following day (Tuesday 24 September), CIOB and FMB held a well-attended roundtable entitled ‘builders of the future: driving growth through construction’ which was attended by Sarah Jones MP, Minister for Industry, Department for Energy Security & Net Zero and Department for Business & Trade who has responsibility for the construction brief. Other attendees included senior industry figures from Thakeham, Balfour Beatty and Bellway as well as trade groups and professional bodies such as CSCS, Design Council, City & Guilds and the Association for Colleges.

As hosts, CIOB and FMB gave a diagnosis of some of the key concerns about the skills pipeline and meeting Labour’s ambitions. In particular, the roundtable covered:

• There is an urgent need for apprenticeship reform, with cautious optimism about Skills England as a mechanism to achieve this.
• We need to shift the dialogue on careers in the built environment. Better quality training and skills provision is clearly part of the puzzle, but to bring Labour’s plans to fruition we will require a significant number of new entrants to join the sector, across trades and professional level jobs.
• At the same time, there is a need for the Government to understand that new entrants alone will not be sufficient, and the construction industry will need to become more productive and less-resource intensive, which will shift some of the work to off-site and manufacturing premises. This will alter the skills landscape and factor into challenges around diversity and attractiveness of the sector.

The Minister was in listening mode and welcomed contributions as she informed attendees of the broader concept of Skills England, how they will be looking at the capacity and capability issue of the sector as well as how organisations, such as CIOB can continue to engage.

Following the roundtable, the team attended some final fringe events and held meetings with MPs, including Gareth Snell MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central and Sean Woodcock MP for Banbury who requested further information about the CIOB and briefing on issues affecting the built environment. 

To summarise, the team made some excellent contacts, and we are pleased with the opportunity to meet new MPs to ensure they have a greater understanding about the built environment. We are already set to meet with the Minister for Industry in the coming weeks to further share our views on the skills landscape, but also factor in the work we have been carrying out on sustainability, quality, and safety.

Our focus over the coming months will be to develop some further research outlining the capacity and capability landscape for the new Skills England body and ensuring Labour’s plans for the built environment are realistic.

At Conservative:

This year we conducted a smaller Conservative programme than in previous years. This is primarily due to the changing political landscape and awaiting the decision for the next party leader, which is between Kemi Badenoch MP, James Cleverly MP, Robert Jenrick MP and Tom Tugendhat MP.

Regardless, the Conservative’s remain the official opposition, with 121 MPs and we remain keen to work across the political spectrum on ensuring the built environment receives the attention it deserves.

CIOB held an evening reception for Conservative party conference attendees with the RIBA, RICS, RTPI and the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) at RICS’ Birmingham office. Mark Reeves, Senior Consultant at Diales & Chair of the CIOB Birmingham Hub kindly gave a short speech informing guests about the work of CIOB and the Joint Institute’s as well as some of the work the Hub has been engaging with in the Midlands.

Conservative MPs and Peers attended the event, including Lord Moylan who Chairs the House of Lords Built Environment Select Committee as well as local members and other stakeholders.

We will await the outcome of the leadership elections and then engage with the newly elected Shadow Government in the coming months.
 

For any further information about our party conference activity, or to get involved with our policy and public affairs programme, please contact [email protected].