Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what strategy his Department has in place to ensure sufficient skills for the housing construction programme.

Plans to improve construction skills were set out in the recent Industrial Strategy White Paper. In particular, we will be making the Construction Industry Training Board more effective and accountable, and will be putting in place support for construction skills as part of the National Retraining Scheme, using additional funding announced in the Budget.

The government also announced ambitious plans to increase homebuilding, with a target of 300,000 homes a year in England by 2025. The department is working with employers and others to make sure there are enough people with the right skills to deliver these plans.