Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300
- 319)
WEDNESDAY 7 JULY 2004
MR JOHN
SLAUGHTER, MR
ANDREW WHITAKER
AND MR
IAN HORNBY
Q300 Joan Walley: But you have got
commitments?
Mr Whitaker: Yes, we have.
Q301 Joan Walley: You have got money
that has been allocated, have you not?
Mr Whitaker: Yes, we have, and
we are very pleased with that. We want commitment to the numbers
now, to say, "Well, actually we are going to facilitate output
of more housing in this country," and therefore as an industry
we can invest in the training and skills that we need to deliver
that, however that is, whether it is through traditional skills
or through modern methods of construction. But if somebody says,
"Well, actually things might change next year. We might turn
round and we will reduce the numbers all over again," and
we as an industry have just skilled up to produce more housing,
and somebody says, "Well, actually we don't need more housing"—
Q302 Joan Walley: So if the Minister
was sat where you are sat now and you were saying what was needed,
what would you say to Government is needed to give you that trigger
to go ahead and to keep the apprentices and the training and the
skills coming through?
Mr Whitaker: A long term commitment
to a strategy to increase the output of housing in this country.
Chairman: Well, it might help to cancel
the General Election then as well!
Joan Walley: I think that is unfair,
Chairman.
Q303 Mr Chaytor: Your industry produces
vast quantities of CO2 emissions because we build poorly
insulated homes and you use up huge quantities of finite resources,
you generate vast traffic movement, so you have not exactly been
in the vanguard of sustainable development. My question is, what
are you doing as a trade association to turn that around? Have
you given specific leadership, specific guidance to your member
companies to start operating in a more sustainable way?
Mr Slaughter: Across that range
of issues, I think that is very wide-ranging indeed. I would have
to say that we would not entirely accept the premise of your question.
Q304 Mr Chaytor: The housing sector
produces 27% of the nation's carbon dioxide.
Mr Slaughter: That is the entire
housing stock.
Q305 Mr Chaytor: If the Barker recommendations
go ahead it will increase it by a further 20%.
Mr Slaughter: That is referring
to the DEFRA report, which I will perhaps come back to, but if
you take the 27% figure, that is for the entire housing stock
and, as I think is well known, the new build housing today is
far more energy efficient than its predecessors and in fact we
would maintain that approached in the right way a new house building
programme that also allows for replacement where appropriate of
the older, less energy efficient housing stock could be a good
thing environmentally rather than a problem. But to come back
to your question, we are looking seriously as a trade association
at sustainability. We are engaged in dialogue with organisations
like WWF. We have begun to look at what we can do in promoting
our own sustainability strategy. We are at a fairly early stage
of that, so we do not have a public position that I can share
with you today, but I can give you an undertaking that we are
looking seriously at those issues and that is likely to involve
a range of interactions with other parties, not just the builders
themselves but with the supply chain and other parts of the picture.
On the 20% figure in the DEFRA commissioned study, I would make
the remark that that was one possible outcome that was highlighted,
but the report also indicated that if housing was built to higher
environmental standards in the future you could in fact have an
increase in house building levels above what is allowed for in
existing regional planning guidance for probably a lower environmental
impact than continuing on existing standards. There are obviously
issues about how you get to that higher level of standards, but
I do not think it is necessarily the case that having this new
house building means it is an environmental bad; quite the opposite.
Q306 Mr Chaytor: But are you proactive
in arguing the case for zero emission housing, for example?
Mr Slaughter: I do not think we
can say that we are proactively arguing for that at the moment.
Q307 Mr Chaytor: Surely this is key?
There is no point in just issuing warm words about sustainability,
you have got to come to the crunch point where you put your position
on the line and say, "It is possible to build a zero emission
house and this is what we should be aiming for and this is what
the Government should do in terms of Building Regulations."
Mr Slaughter: I think what I should
perhaps say is that we could not make that commitment now from
where we are because that is a big jump. Ian may want to come
in on this.
Q308 Mr Chaytor: But it could be
done over a timescale? We are talking long timescales here, are
we? Are we talking twenty year timescales here, for example?
Mr Hornby: It is over a large
timescale. To actually try to achieve that immediately is virtually
impossible and there is a major risk factor there. We heard from
our friends, Countryside, that the current Building Regulations
achieve in terms of thermal performance the "pass" of
the EcoHomes. The next consultation is out at the end of this
month, which should take us to "good" to "excellent"
possibly, so I think in terms of performance on energy conservation
the industry is developing systems to achieve that. It has been
through evolution rather than revolution but I think there are
probably about thirty examples where members of the industry are
actually promoting off-site manufacture, prefabrications, to try
and address these issues even further and they obviously have
their own internal drivers which are pushing them towards this.
Q309 Mr Chaytor: At the current rate
of progress in updating the Building Regulations, how many years
before we build zero emission housing as a norm?
Mr Hornby: I cannot answer that
question.
Q310 Mr Chaytor: But is this not
crucial for your role as a trade association and is it not crucial
for government housing policy? We are talking about planning for
the building of homes twenty years ahead but you cannot tell us
that we could ramp up our energy efficiency?
Mr Slaughter: To be constructive
about this, I think the point we would have to make is that we
can have this discussion but the discussion has not taken place
and maybe this is an issue about how processes have worked and
the way the Sustainable Buildings Task Group was referred to in
the last session is relevant here. The ideas that have been put
forward by that task group are, I think, a move in the direction
that perhaps you are interested in, but we have not had the debate
about that. The code has not been set up yet. We have not been
able to be involved in an active discussion about it. I think
we would like to be involved in those discussions and it is entirely
reasonable to suggest that you can work towards a long term goal
on emissions or anything else, but we have not had the right structures
perhaps to facilitate that dialogue.
Q311 Mr Chaytor: Just one final thing.
You mentioned your work with the WWF, who have conducted a survey
of FTSE listed companies. How many of our members are in the top
end of that survey?
Mr Slaughter: Well, I think probably
only one of the companies surveyed is not a member of the trade
association.
Q312 Mr Chaytor: Only one is not
a member?
Mr Slaughter: Yes.
Q313 Mr Chaytor: Okay, but how do
your members perform? If only one company is not a member then
inevitably all the rest of the companies surveyed are members?
Mr Slaughter: Well, it depends
how you want to draw it.
Q314 Joan Walley: I just wanted to
press you a bit further on the point that Mr Chaytor was making
in respect of energy efficiency. Am I right in thinking that there
has just been the consultation about the new regulations in respect
of energy efficiency in terms of insulation of houses?
Mr Hornby: It is to be issued
for consultation at the end of this month.
Q315 Joan Walley: Right. Presumably
this is something that you have discussed and have got some view
on. What is your bottom line on that? It would be very interesting
as well, I think, for the Committee to have a copy of that response
to ODPM.
Mr Hornby: There are some unknowns
in there at the moment. The actual calculation methodology I believe
will change from a table of minimum new values to actually a calculation
which predicts the amount of carbon emissions to achieve a pass—
Q316 Joan Walley: Well, never mind
the technicalities of it, as a trade association what would you
like the Government to be doing in respect of those regulations?
If you were briefing Government in terms of the way forward you
would like to be going, where are you pitching it at in terms
of energy efficiency and insulation?
Mr Hornby: Well, it is a constant
improvement of the energy efficiency of homes, which we appreciate
the Government is—
Q317 Joan Walley: But do you want
it? Are you willing to go down that route, quicker rather than
later? I do not get the feeling that you do. I feel that you are
trying to slow it down. The Committee visited Aberdeen last week
and the one message that we were given was, "Whatever you
do, if you can influence anything, get better insulation in terms
of the construction of buildings." Why are you not shouting
that from the roof tops?
Mr Whitaker: Well, because there
are lots of practical issues.
Q318 Joan Walley: So it cannot be
done?
Mr Whitaker: No, we are not saying
it cannot be done, we are saying that there are practical issues
that—
Q319 Mr Francois: That are affecting
profits?
Mr Whitaker: Yes, it affects the
way that we build. It affects the building techniques that we
use, it affects the skills that we have got, it affects the type
of housing that we build.
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