Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220
- 239)
WEDNESDAY 7 JULY 2004
KEITH HILL
MP AND LORD
ROOKER
Q220 Mr Francois: Minister, you are
quite right. Thank you for your sweet words, but we did debate
this at some length on the Bill and I do not think it is appropriate
now to go over all of that again. But will you accept that there
is a danger that if the local powers to resist inappropriate or
unwelcome planning applications are weakened a lot of people will
say, when we are all trying to boost turnout in local elections,
"What is the point of electing local councillors of any particular
political colour because when we really need them they do not
have the power to stand up for us any more anyway?"
Keith Hill: But you see, if I
might say so, that is the reality of the situation now. Ultimately,
it is within the powers of the First Secretary to override such
local planning decisions. It is there already and I do not consider
that we are looking at a major change in the way the planning
system operates arising out of the new legislation.
Q221 Mr Chaytor: Ministers, we have
talked about 900,000 new houses a year, plus 200,000 from Barker.
What is viable annual rate of construction?
Lord Rooker: That is a good question.
If I can give you the figures. We had already planned to build
about 160,000 a year to the year 2016. The fact is, the building
industry has been quite complacent. If you look at their total
production over the last years, going right across the last twenty
years, it is more or less the same. Whatever the economic situation,
they have found a comfortable steady figure to build at. It is
not enough for even replacement. So we want a step change. We
had planned to build 180,000. The Communities Plan on average,
with the extra 200,000, would give England an annual rate of about
180,000. The Barker scenarios take us up beyond those figures,
of course, to indicative levels of 220,000. So I do not know what
the figure would be. The fact is, we have got to look at skills
and capacity. First of all, that is one of the reasons why modern
methods of construction will be used. Firstly, they are more efficient
in any event, but secondly they use different kinds of skills
and we do have these skill shortages. So I could give you a figure
and then you could say, "Well, you won't be able to build
them because we haven't got the skills," and that would probably
be correct as we are here today.
Q222 Mr Chaytor: That is my next
question, because Barker talks about a shortfall of 70,000 construction
workers, I think.
Lord Rooker: That is right. Anyone
who trains to be a plasterer, a plumber and a brickie can make
a fortune.[4]
Q223 Mr Chaytor: So the issue is,
if you are looking at over 200,000 a year, what are you doing
about training the construction workers?
Keith Hill: Well, if I might say
so, the obvious answer is the work done by Sir John Egan and his
report on the skills requirements of the Sustainable Communities
Plan. He has produced a very detailed report with, my recollection
is, again something like sixty recommendations for equipping the
planning, construction and architecture industries with appropriate
skills, and of course he has also proposed the establishment of
a national college which will be dedicated to developing the skills
required for the Sustainable Communities Plan. The Government
has of course said that it accepts that proposal.
Q224 Mr Chaytor: Can you guarantee
that the acceptance of the Egan recommendations will deliver the
skilled workforce to meet the target of 200,000 plus new houses
a year without a massive import of plasterers, plumbers and electricians
from Eastern Europe?
Lord Rooker: That is the plan,
but coupled with the fact of changing techniques as well. We want
to give a big boost to modern off-site manufacture, modern methods
of construction. We have done that party to kick-start what is
a very small industry in this country, it is about 1%. If we could
get it up to 3, 4 or 5% over the next six or seven years, and
home grown as well rather than imported. A lot of it is imported.
The kinds of skills are different. They are not lower skills,
they are different skills. There is a factory alongside the M6
motorway near Birmingham, as you go past it, just before you see
the empty Ford Dunlop site, that used to produce UVPC windows.
Inside that factory they have the capacity to build 5,000 houses
a year. A private sector company. It has only just started, it
is only two years old, and I think there are well over 1,500 or
so like that now. I have been in the factory and on the sites.
It is a totally different kind of skills. In fact some of the
former car workers are actually in the factory. So we are looking
at different methods of construction, more modern methods
of construction, coupled with what Keith has said about the Egan
agenda. Hopefully we can get a match of skills and change of technology
to actually service the output of the dwellings we want without
massive imports of labour necessarily, or massive imports of the
products, because there is a home grown industry here to actually
create jobs and assets and economic growth in our own country.
Keith Hill: I think the short
answer is that we cannot guarantee that it will not be necessary
to import skills. I do not think we have foreseen a massive importation
of such skills. But on the issue of modern methods of manufacture,
the Government is putting its money where its mouth is and it
is very interesting that in the Housing Corporation's new building
programme of social housing over the next couple of years, which
will see a 50% increase in delivery of social housing, that 49%
of those homes will be built on the basis of modern methods of
manufacture.
Q225 Mr Chaytor: On Monday this week
I spend a day in Parkhurst and Albany Prisons on the Isle of Wight
talking to inmates about schools and training and without exception
every long-term inmate I spoke to wanted on their release date
to work on a building site and they wanted to be bricklayers.
Now, you will appreciate that this raises issues about standards
and quality in the construction industry and yet in the Barker
report on the question of regulating quality the recommendation
she comes up with is fairly flimsy, is it not?
Keith Hill: Well, if I might say
so, the answer to all of these things is training, is it not?
I read a wonderful story—
Q226 Mr Chaytor: But, if I could
just raise the point, it is also to do with regulation, is it
not? All that Barker is saying here is that the House Builders
Federation should develop a strategy to increase the proportion
of house buyers who would recommend their house builder to somebody
else from 46% to 75%. If you accept this, a quarter of purchasers
of new houses are still going to be dissatisfied because they
would not recommend their house builder to somebody else. So this
is fairly lax regulation, is it not? My question is, what are
you doing to drive up quality? Given we are going to have huge
numbers of serial rapists and murderers coming out of Parkhurst
and Albany seeking jobs on building sites to build the homes you
want, what are you actually doing to drive up the quality?
Keith Hill: Well, can I just say
that I do not really want to go there with regard to who exactly
is going to be building these things, but I would have thought
there is absolutely nothing wrong in prisoners actually being
trained in these skills. I was going to say that I read a wonderful
story this week about training for pipeline layers, of which there
is a national shortage, and apparently significant numbers of
prisoners have been trained in these skills and the rate of recidivism
amongst these pipeline layers is absolutely minimal. Actually,
is this not a way forward for us all? On the question of the quality
of the building, however—
Chairman: I think we are straying somewhat
and time is short.
Q227 Joan Walley: I would just like
to continue the whole debate about sustainable construction and
take you to a different place, to Burslam, and maybe help you
out there because on Friday I am going to be cutting the sod of
a new construction college which has got £5 million worth
of funding. But I think what we really want to explore with you
in terms of the sustainable communities that are taking place
now and Barker in terms of the training shortage and the construction
skill shortage that there is and the lack of research that there
is. What research is specifically taking place about construction
methods for sustainable development? The Committee was in Aberdeen
last week and we have also had BRE giving evidence to our Committee
and it has been said to us that the funding that the Government
is making available for research into sustainable construction
has declined and what we really are interested in is to make sure
that these new properties that will be going up have got the proper
sustainable energy and everything else in terms of construction
skills embedded into them. What research funding is available
for this?
Lord Rooker: Off the top of my
head, I can tell you in some ways in construction, we do not want
to pass the buck on this because we are speaking for the Government,
but the DTI are involved in that. But if you have evidence from
BRE, I would suggest that if you have not been there, go there.
I was at BRE just over a year ago where they had got an exhibition,
a symposium, the largest operation they had done in fifteen years
for off-site manufacture, both the symposium for the week and
the examples they had got there in their yard, because there is
obviously a large space there, of the varieties and forms of modern
methods of manufacture where the quality is vastly superior because
it is basically quality controlled in factories. The big problem
is to make sure on the site when it is put together you have got
top quality control. That is absolutely fundamental because it
ruins the whole work that has been done inside the factories if
it is not put together properly. It is put together with precision
rather than with a sledgehammer. So there is a lot of work going
on on that and I would not argue about the money. It is not research,
it is people we want and, as Keith said, training.
Q228 Joan Walley: I think that point
has been made very clearly to us, that if you do not have the
workers on site actually knowing what they do and how they are
doing it, you can lose all the gains you have got.
Lord Rooker: Sure.
Q229 Joan Walley: Just returning
to the funding for research, one of the issues we were concerned
about is the whole life impact of different construction methods
and materials, including modern methods of construction and given
the fact that the Housing Corporation already has, I think, quite
a significant target to meet, are you satisfied that there is
sufficient research into the kinds of new methods that we need
to be looking at and how are you evaluating that because we would
not want to be in the situation where we were building for the
future but we were not using the best possible practical means
of construction methods to do with sustainable development that
we need?
Lord Rooker: Well, the answer
I would give to that comes from another exhibition I went to at
the National Exhibition Centre, the big building exhibition. I
was only able to go to one hall and I wanted to go to the offsite
manufacturing hall. There were probably twenty companies on display
and the key is this. You are looking at house building. Virtually
any other building that goes up in this country, school, hospital,
community centre, is not built with wet trades, traditional methods,
it is built with modern methods of manufacture; probably even
the prisons are as well. So it is not as if we do not have experience.
The term "modern methods", by the way, I stole on behalf
of ODPM from Manchester because when I was being shown some properties
around there about what was being done with new build and refurbished,
I remember saying to the developer, Tom Bloxham, "Tom, how
do you describe what you are doing?" He said, "Well,
I'm using modern methods of manufacture rather than traditional
methods." As I say, we do this in other buildings. Go and
have a look at them. There is nothing new.
Q230 Joan Walley: But are we doing
the research to check, because some of the evidence that we had
in Aberdeen was that modern methods might not actually in the
long term be as sustainable as traditional methods and it is about
whether or not we are monitoring whether the research that we
are doing is adequate or not.
Keith Hill: Well, on the question
of research, I was tempted to quote a very great man, who of course,
as we know, said, "Why look into the crystal ball when you
can read it in the book?" The truth is that modern methods
of construction, offsite manufacture, are the norm in a number
of countries, certainly in North America and very extensively
in Germany, for example. So the technologies are there. They are
well-tried and they are importable. But inspiration has winged
its way to me on the question of investment and research and I
can inform the Committee that we have a significant programme
to support our building regulations development. That is approximately
£5 million. It is the case that the DTI has the remit for
construction and performance and I am also delighted to inform
the Committee that the BRE has carried out a huge range of studies
on technical performances.
Q231 Joan Walley: They told us that
the research money has been cut. You do not disagree with that?
Keith Hill: I do not think we
can comment on that.
Lord Rooker: No. I do not know
a body in the country, whether a quango or a research body, that
does not say, "We need more money." But I cannot comment
on the particular item.
Q232 Joan Walley: Just turning to
the Sustainable Buildings Task Group, which you mentioned just
now, do you think it is likely that you will be going ahead with
all the recommendations that were there, and if so what timescale
are you working to? That includes the national centre as well
that you talked about.
Lord Rooker: On this Egan Review
the remaining recommendations were expected late this month. We
are taking forward the key recommendation, which is the national
centre, which Keith referred to, and there is a list of the great
and the good, including ODPM staff, Royal Town Planning Institute;
CABE Institute, Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment,
chartered surveyors CITB, English Partnerships, English Heritage
and one or two others.[5]
Q233 Chairman: This is not just a
minute, Minister!
Lord Rooker: There is a whole
list of people on that looking at how we would operate this national
centre and to locating it.
Q234 Joan Walley: Have you got any
shortlist for the location?
Lord Rooker: No.
Keith Hill: It is great doing
these double acts because it does give you time to scrabble through
your notes on it!
Q235 Chairman: I think we should
have you in separately next time!
Keith Hill: On the question of
the Sustainable Buildings Task Group, I can inform the Committee
that we welcome the report of the Sustainable Buildings Task Group;
indeed, I was present to launch its report, I seem to recall!
We support the principles of their recommendations and will be
responding formally on the recommendations by the end of this
month!
Q236 Joan Walley: Could you just
tell us finally why BRE were not on that task force?
Keith Hill: I do not know the
answer to that.
Q237 Chairman: Could you write and
let us know, please?
Keith Hill: Yes.
Chairman: Thank you.
Q238 Mr Francois: Looking at the
Sustainable Communities Plan—and I declare an interest,
Chairman, because my constituency is not actually within the Thames
Gateway but it abuts it, so I know a little about it—the
plan is often talked about, including by yourselves, as if it
is synonymous with sustainable development. There is a lot of
people who hold the view that it is seriously lacking in a significant
environmental dimension. How would you defend yourselves against
that charge?
Lord Rooker: Well, look at page
5 of the Sustainable Communities Plan, where we set out there,
if you like, a 12 point plan of what makes a sustainable community.
I am not going to read them all out, it is there. That is what
we are operating to. There are people, of course, who are against
growth at any price and it takes longer to explain the reasons
for the growth and what we are doing than it does to oppose, but
we can quote example after example where since the plan was operated
and since the policies were enunciated we get higher density,
better quality developments, people want to go and live there
rather than flee from there, and where we try and get it jobs-led.
It is not a house building programme. We have only talked about
numbers. We are not engaged in the Communities Plan on a house
building programme. It is not about that.
Q239 Mr Francois: Minister, just
briefly, there were 12 points but, as I understand it, just one
of them referred to the environment. The Energy Savings Trust
looked at this directly and they criticised the plan as trying
to build houses "as quickly and cheaply as possible, overriding
environmental commitments", those are their words, not the
Committee's. The plan was called by them "at best a missed
opportunity and at worst reckless." What would you say to
the Energy Savings Trust?
Lord Rooker: That does not sound
like a very professional analysis of what we are actually doing,
as opposed to what they may have read. I can take you to examples
of dwellings (both new and refurbished) where work is going on
to try and find new techniques, because we do not want to go around
demolishing things we do not need to demolish—there is one
in particular in Smethwick where there is a group going on there—where
we try to show that 100 year old dwellings can actually be upgraded
so that they have got better environmental standards than even
modern buildings I have been in with what we have been able to
do to use these techniques. Elsewhere in the same area, I was
in refurbished dwellings last week, blocks of flats where we are
doing that, whether it is through grey water, energy conservation,
a whole range of issues, and of course energy supply as well through
the sun rather than through burning carbon fuels. So there is
plenty of work going on. I am not saying it is perfect and every
site is like that, it is not, but that is the direction in which
we are going.
Keith Hill: Do bear in mind, for
example, that the last set of building regulations were designed
to improve thermal efficiency by 25% on new build and if you look
at the exemplar new build that we are developing through the so-called
Millennium Villages, if you look particularly at the Greenwich
Millennium Village, with which I am very familiar, as a result
of recycling of water and as a result of improved fittings you
are looking at water savings of something in the order of 30%
in those developments. That is the sort of standard that we are
obviously looking towards in these new developments.
4 Note by the witness: 71,000 estimated shortfall
in housebuilding industry to produce her tower output scenario
[220,000 units per year]. Back
5
Note by the witness: The government's response to the
Sustainable Buildings Task Group is due at the end of July 2004. Back
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