Member

Finally, the impact assessment focuses very much on new homes and buildings. The refurbishment of our incredibly poor housing stock is a huge challenge. In some ways, that is an even more fragmented part of the industry, but it also has the potential to be a steady, continuing source of employment, given that the demand is enormous. I talked about this once at a public meeting, and someone said to me, “What are you going to do with these workers when they run out of houses to insulate and repair?” I said, “That’s a problem for a couple of generations’ time. It won’t be a problem any time soon”. What are we doing to make sure that we are equipping our workforce? In many ways, refurbishing old homes—Victorian homes or older—is a particularly complex task that really needs skills. What are we doing to inject those skills into our workforce?