Housing: New Homes Target

Lord Taylor of Goss Moor Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gascoigne (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises a very good point, if I may say so. I am sure noble Lords have heard this before, but it is through our affordable homes programme and the £11.5 billion that we seek to deliver tens of thousands of homes. I am pleased to say that of the 700,000 affordable homes built since 2010, 172,000 have been for social rent and 482,000 for rent.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Con)]

My Lords—

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, shall we hear from the Liberal Democrat Benches and then from the Conservative Benches? Thank you.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my declaration in the register of interests. The noble Lord, Lord Young, is quite right to point out the need to plan for homes but there is also a need to deliver them. I am sure the Minister is aware that the major players in the delivery of category 1 modular homes have failed despite significant government investment in supporting them. With category 2 modular methods of construction, the factories are held largely by the small number of major housebuilders, yet those who build homes—the bricklayers, plumbers and electricians —are increasingly ageing and not being replaced. What will the Government do to support smaller housebuilders, which will soon have no access to the skilled trades to build homes and yet do not have access to factories to use modern methods of construction to deliver them either?

[Lord Gascoigne (Con)]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for raising this. There are a number of points there, and I will not be able to do justice to all of them, but I will write on all of those things. I think it is about a quarter of the affordable homes programme that has to be done through the modern methods of construction. In terms of insufficient workers—I shall write to make that point—the Department for Education is looking at the training routes, but it is also something that the Government are looking at through the significant apprenticeship programme that we have got, and part of that is allocated towards construction workers. In terms of doing more to support SMEs, it is something we will do but I promise I will write to the noble Lord to set out all these things.