The urgent need to build more homes for everyone should be a key priority for all the political parties during the General Election campaign, says the Federation of Master Builders (FMB).
The FMB is calling on all the political parties to make house building a national infrastructure priority, along with 11 other key policy areas in its recently published “Programme for Government”.
The programme calls for the political parties to commit to the following:
Housing
- Make house building a national infrastructure priority and build 1.5m new homes
- Free up more public land for housing and break it up into small plots for small builders
- Invest in local authority planning departments to speed up the planning process
Skills
- Promote vocational education and invest in Further Education
- Reform the UK Apprenticeship Levy so it works better for small companies
- Introduce a fair and balanced post-Brexit immigration system
Quality
- Licence all UK construction companies
- Introduce mandatory warranties for building control-approved work
- Create a new ‘General Builder’ qualification
Net Zero Carbon
- Create a National Retrofit Strategy
- Invest in upskilling builders to build and upgrade homes fit for the future
- Cut VAT on home improvement work to 5%
Brian Berry, chief executive at the FMB said: “In this Brexit election the main political parties mustn’t lose sight of the big issues facing the UK such as the current housing crisis.”
