You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
L&Q chief warns of ‘construction skills crisis’
London faces a “construction skills crisis” fuelled by Brexit and an ageing workforce, the chief executive of L&Q has warned.
Speaking at the Conservative Party conference, David Montague said the government should tell skilled workers they are “welcome, wherever they come from”.
He said: “In London we’ve got 350,000 people working in construction and of those around half come from Europe and beyond. In fact, 109,000 people come from Europe and of those remaining people that are British nationals around 25% will leave in the next 10 years and so we really do face something of a construction skills crisis.
READ MORE
“What we’re saying to government is we [housing associations] will invest – we will invest in apprenticeships, in jobs, in offsite construction – but we need to deal with the here and now as well. What we would like to hear government say is that skilled workers are welcome wherever they come from.”
Mr Montague said housing associations need rent certainty from the government and without this it will be tough to raise money from investors to build new housing.
“The whole housing association sector has just been down-rated by the rating agencies because of uncertainty around Brexit and we’re going out to the bond markets on a regular basis to raise very significant sums of money. We cannot do that unless we can be certain about our future rental income. This is a hard pitch right now – we’ve got Brexit, we’ve got market uncertainty, we’ve got housing associations taking on more risk and we really need to present a compelling case to our investors. We can do that if we can be certain about the future of our rental income,” he said.
Mr Montague called for a “long-term, post-Brexit vision for investment and growth”. He added: “Housing associations will invest. If this government backs us, we’ll invest in jobs, apprenticeships, economic growth and homes.”
