Select committee: Built Environment Committee
Conclusion 184
1st Report - Meeting housing demand
Published 10 Jan 2022
Built Environment Committee Meeting the UK’s housing demand All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The construction sector employs over 10% of the country’s workforce. 273 In 2019, the sector contributed £117 billion to the UK economy, representing 6% of the UK’s total economic output, and accounted for 300,000 businesses, which was 13% of the UK’s total. 274 The Government’s Employer Skills Survey in 2019 found that skills shortages accounted for 36% of all construction vacancies and 48% of all manufacturing and skilled trades vacancies. 275 An ageing workforce contributes to this: 35% of the workforce are over 50. Only 20% of workers are aged below 30, a 2.5% reduction from five years ago. 276 This will require the sector to recruit an additional 217,000 workers, or more than 43,000 per year. 277 The types of jobs needed span a range of manual trades, as well as including emerging jobs in digital and manufacturing. In 2019, Build UK identified the roles with the most severe shortages as: construction and building trades supervisors; general labourers; quantity surveyors; construction project managers; bricklayers; civil engineers; and carpenters and joiners. 278 The figures of those working in the construction industry do not include those employed in factories. 279
From: Built Environment Committee, 1st Report - Meeting housing demand, 10 January 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 28 March 2022 (deadline 10 March 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government welcomes the Committee's report and says it is "taking action on a number of the issues identified", agreeing with some recommendations while disagreeing with others, including on home ownership schemes and the Apprenticeship Levy.
- It "disagrees with the report's assessment that homeownership schemes do not provide good value for money", citing independent evaluations and its own evaluation of Help to Buy.
- On older people's housing, it is launching a new taskforce "this year", chaired by the Minister for Housing, to look at better choice, quality and security of housing.
- It does "not intend to set out a proportion" of Affordable Homes Programme funding for social housing, though "around half" of the affordable homes are to be for social and affordable rent.
- On the Apprenticeship Levy it says it has "no plans to review" it. On planning fees it is "exploring options" to increase them, and on local plans it will make an announcement "in due course".