Housing: Modular Construction

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 8th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I know that the noble Lord has been interested in this sector for many years. I assure him that the Government are taking this very seriously. We are focusing on removing all the barriers to growth. These are about insurance, finance, warranties and, as he mentioned, mortgages. It is all about stimulating that pipeline so that these companies can invest and keep those factories going until this becomes a normality in our housing system.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, has my noble friend read the government publication Modern Methods of Construction, published in September last year? It says:

“The government is committed to using its position as the single largest construction client to support the adoption of a more productive and sustainable business model”,


and goes on to say that there is

“a presumption in favour of off-site construction for relevant departments”.

What progress have the Government been able to make in using MMC for the prison and hospital building programme? If there is success there, might it not encourage the housebuilding industry to take renewed interest in MMC for homes?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

On my noble friend’s last point, that is exactly what we are doing: we are encouraging all the time through investment and support to help housebuilding. On other issues of building public buildings in particular, we want to encourage the take-up of MMC across the whole range of traditional building sites. We can do that by sharing across government. We have introduced a presumption in favour of MMC in our capital programmes, such as within the Department for Education’s school rebuilding programme and the Ministry of Defence accommodation programme. Significant progress has been made on schools and prisons programmes, and we are using those examples of best practice to help shape future policy for MMC.