Lucy Frazer, who is the MP for South East Cambridgeshire recently attended the FMB Building Conference drinks reception sponsored by Jewson and Build Aviator on 8 November alongside key policy makers, industry stakeholders and Master Builder companies.
Overview
Lucy shared her plans with the audience to support SME house builders in her new position. She plans to do this primarily through reducing planning delays as well as bringing down costs for housebuilders. She also praised the work of the FMB and expressed the need for a strong relationship between the Government and the industry in order to make substantial, long-term changes.
The speech comes at a time when both economic and political instability are causing challenges for our SME housebuilders. In our recent State of Trade report, the data states that workload and enquiries have decreased in Q3 2022 compared to Q2 2022. Our builders anticipate that the next few months will continue to be hard on the industry, with expectations of a fall in volumes of new work and key concerns around the longer-term UK economic outlook. Our data also indicated that at least one third of FMB members are struggling to recruit carpenters/joiners, bricklayers and general labourers, both material costs and a shortage of skilled workers being some of the main industry concerns.
Planning
Lucy spoke on a number of key issues affecting the industry, one of which was planning reform. She described this as a ‘major area of focus’ for the government but advised that it would take time to modernise the ‘byzantine’ system in which things currently operate. Members will be glad to hear this as we know it’s one of the biggest issues stopping you from delivering new homes.
Lucy also spoke about the need for urgent action to be taken in light of the current energy crisis and she said: “The Government is acting urgently on improving the UK’s current energy standards.”
Despite not going into any specific detail on how the Government plans to implement these policy changes, she advised that they are currently passing the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill through Parliament which will support the housing and construction industry and make it easier for builders to purchase materials, as well as simplify planning systems.
She said: “The bill will support SMEs to build more homes by making the planning system easier to navigate, faster and more predictable. It definitely won’t happen overnight, but our aim absolutely is to reduce delays and costs for housebuilders. We know uncertainty is always the enemy for business and we want to strip that uncertainty away and we are going to reform the planning system, giving SME housebuilders and communities more certainty of what the future holds in their area.”
Levelling up
Lucy also shared how the Government recognises how key our SME homebuilders are driving forward the levelling up mission across the UK. At the FMB, we know that one of the best ways to do this in practise is to upskill the industry, as well as implement a national retrofit strategy which would enable communities to employ local SME housebuilders and provide them with an opportunity to retrofit our UK homes.
Next steps
We will continue to engage with the new Housing Minister and the wider Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to make sure the voice of our members is heard.
