Labour's 1.5m new homes goal thrown into doubt as minister admits we don't have enough workers to build them
Labour’s flagship pledge of 1.5 million new homes this Parliament was thrown into doubt as a minister admitted to a shortage of workers to build them.
Skills minister Baroness Smith of Malvern was frank about the need to train up more construction workers to achieve the challenging target to tackle the housing crisis in London and other parts of Britain..
“I’m not confident that we’ve got enough skilled workers, no that’s what we’ve inherited,” she told Times Radio.
It's strange how informed people will have known this already, even those who know nothing about the building industry. Maybe they did some research so I suppose that counts as cheating in political circles. Or maybe it's worse, maybe it's far right cheating.
As informed people also know, there is another major skills shortage in the Labour party, but somehow Skills minister Baroness Smith of Malvern is unlikely to tackle that one, presumably because the last government can't easily be held responsible for it.
5 comments:
Why would I train up for construction work when I'm not even allowed to wolf whistle from the scaffolding? Besides, aren't we importing engineers, builders and other professionals from abroad at even increasing rate.
Working in further Education colleges, I was tangentially involved in this one some years ago. Setting up a construction department is capital intensive, because you need pugmills, bricks, mortar, and a lot of space. It's not like setting up a new academic course. The courses bring in more money, but principals are wary of spending their capital or getting loans on something that might not run and would take a lot of setting up. And staffing them is particularly troublesome. The blokes who want the teaching jobs are usually in their 40s and 50s. That's normal for F.E., but as you might imagine, some of them are rough diamonds and need a bit more input in terms of DEI, Safeguarding, embedding government targets for literacy and numeracy and net zero into the curriculum, providing relevant paperwork, taking kindly to Ofsted inspectors, and being based in offices with a load of poncey academic types.
So this is going to take some time, and overall, another reason to give heartfelt thanks that I'm retired.
“As informed people also know, there is another major skills shortage in the Labour party …”
Party of skills shortage, no?
It's a consequence of the secondary education changes made by Labour. With all children going to Comprehensives and education planners phasing out all practical craft subjects that used to be taught in Secondary Moderns, it's hardly surprising that many fewer youngsters would go into building work. This coupled with changes to child control and discipline in schools
and the misguided policy of pushing unsuitable students into higher education is what has caused the shortage of such workers.
and the is responsible for the shortage of these workers.
Anon - it may be that those imported builders will need to bring their own scaffolding and materials too.
Sam - interesting and I can just imagine the people you are referring to. I wonder how many of those rough diamonds would put up with it all today and how many prefer to do a few jobs here and there with a few old mates.
James - yes it is, the pool of talent seems to be bone dry if Ashley Dalton was at the front of the promotion queue.
Tammly - I agree, we should have stayed with the Secondary Moderns and practical education and we shouldn't have expanded universities. My cousin went to a Secondary Modern, became an apprentice fitter with a bus company and eventually a transport manager. People with aptitudes build on them in their own way.
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