Recommendation 33

MHCLG explained that it is committed to producing a long-term housing strategy early in 2025 that will focus on both supply and quality. It suggested that the strategy would set out a range of actions across the supply chain, on issues such as: skills; planning; working with developers; breaking down barriers to development; building up the role of SMEs; reforms to social housing; the new towns taskforce; building up the capacity of local planning authorities to work through cases faster; and the barriers holding back stalled sites. We emphasised that, even if other issues are dealt with, there is a critical need for people with the skills to actually do the building, and that MHCLG must address this in order to deliver greater numbers of houses.48