Baroness Scott of Bybrook

The government aims to ensure that people are able to get the skills that will enable them to have good, well paid jobs and enable the economy to grow.

Access to a skilled workforce is crucial for the dual missions of growing the economy and making Britain a green energy superpower.

It is essential that all construction trades working within the built environment have the right level of skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours.

The Government will be working with the industry over the short and long term to ensure the sector has access to skilled labour. We have already announced the introduction of Skills England and launched the Office for Green Jobs, so the next generation of construction workers can deliver the built environment.

The Department’s Planning Capacity and Capability programme already funds successful and well-established initiatives for bringing planners into the public sector, which we will seek to build on. This includes working with two delivery partners, Pathways to Planning a programme run by the Local Government Association and Public Practice. Pathways to Planning have delivered more than 80 new graduate planners, and Public Practice are recruiting 20 more experienced professionals into their Autumn 2024 cohort.

To rapidly increase these numbers, at the Budget the Chancellor announced a £46 million package of investment to support capacity and capability in local planning authorities. We are therefore working with delivery partners to understand how we can scale up this delivery even further and, fund the recruitment and training of an additional 300 planners. This includes expansion of the Pathways to Planning programme which has had significant interest from prospective graduates wanting to take up roles in local planning authorities and train while they work. This will be further underpinned by increases in planning fees we are introducing in the coming months that will help improve the resourcing of planning services. This activity will include monitoring measures to ensure this commitment is met.

The government has inherited an extremely difficult fiscal environment and has a responsibility to fix the foundations of our economy, to ensure economic stability.

The department will set out further details on next steps and confirmation of the revised timelines in due course.

To meet the Government’s commitment to deliver 1.5 million homes over this Parliament, alongside net zero and housing quality objectives, we will need to expand and upskill the construction workforce. We are working with the construction industry to ensure we have the workforce necessary to meet our housebuilding ambitions through the delivery of sufficient high-quality training opportunities which will build a diverse workforce that is fit for the future.

Modern methods of construction (MMC) provides an important opportunity to improve productivity in the construction sector, and quickly deliver high quality, energy efficient, homes whilst creating new and diverse jobs in the sector.

We will reflect on views from across the sector to establish how best to increase the use of MMC and will set out more details on this in due course.

Modern methods of construction (MMC) provides an important opportunity to improve productivity in the construction sector, and quickly deliver high quality, energy efficient, homes whilst creating new and diverse jobs in the sector.

We will reflect on views from across the sector to establish how best to increase the use of MMC and will set out more details on this in due course.