Recommendation 65

We recommend that the Government, in response to this report, should: • Provide a realistic assessment of the construction workforce and what is needed to deliver the Government’s housing targets for each remaining year of this Parliament. This should include: ○ Annual estimates of the number of construction workers needed to meet the Government’s yearly and five-year home building targets. ○ The projected natural wastage (i.e. rates of retirement) for each year from the existing workforce, to establish a baseline for recruitment and anticipate the impacts on home building. ○ Projections as to how many new recruits are expected to join the construction workforce, after adequate training that focusses on building residential properties. ○ Possible contingencies, for each year, if existing and projected workforce levels are insufficient to deliver annual housing targets. • Set out an analysis of the skill set the Government believes will be required to deliver 1.5 million homes, in line with climate and biodiversity targets. This should include an analysis of any significant gaps and how they will be addressed, in addition to: 97 ○ Skills required to install sustainable building materials. ○ Digital skills and tools to improve efficiency and support the measurement and reduction of embodied and operational carbon. ○ Skills and knowledge to maximise the development of brownfield sites for housing. ○ Skills needed to retrofit existing housing stock, to meet environmental and net zero standards. ○ An ability to work with ecologists and planning professionals to ensure optimum environmental and nature-based outcomes and support key policies such as Biodiversity Net Gain. (Recommendation, Paragraph 218)