Built Environment Sector

Lord Brennan of Canton Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes another very important point. Over the past years, the nature of the construction market has changed and it is absolutely right to focus on small builders. There is a whole programme of support for SME builders, some of which is in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. It includes streamlined planning rules for small sites to reduce bureaucracy around those kinds of approvals and new reforms to ease biodiversity net gain requirements, again for small sites. We are also making efforts on late payments, which can be particularly difficult for small businesses in the construction industry. The consultation proposes a package of measures, including specific measures to address the use of retentions in the industry.

[Lord Brennan of Canton (Lab)]

My Lords, my father was one of those who were known at the time as “McAlpine’s Fusiliers”, helping to build houses across this country, as many immigrants like him from Ireland did. When we talk about deregulation, can we ensure as a Government that that does not mean compromising on health and safety standards for construction workers, nor compromising on the standards of housing that we are building, so that we are building homes for the families of the future, not the slums of the future?

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right on that point. We need to have the right standards, skills and funding. Among the programmes the Government have in front of them, the affordable homes programme, for example, commits £39 billion over 10 years to build social and affordable housing, which will include low-interest loans and rent settlement reforms to support housing providers to provide those decent standards of housing across the country.