Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what recent assessment they have made of the impact on the ability of the construction industry to recruit skilled workers from the EU of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.

The Government has set up a cross Whitehall skills group to review the construction skills shortage and the effect of a reduction in migrant workers in a no deal outcome. The analysis highlighted the effects of the government’s current training efforts and improved uptake on digital and offsite construction and the impact it would have on the construction skills shortage. CITB’s Construction Skills Network forecasts that the construction industry will need to fill 168,500 jobs between now and 2023. If construction continued to grow at the current rate of 1.1% – the average growth rate for the last five years – to 2030 this would increase to just over 250,000 jobs to fill by 2025, and 410,000 by 2030.

Government will focus on high skills to prioritise those migrant workers who bring in the most benefit to the UK, including the 7% of EU nationals working in UK construction to maximise the benefits of immigration through a single skills-based system. Government is therefore committed to engaging with industry on the Immigration White Paper over the coming year to shape the details of the final policy and processes; and we are introducing measures to increase skills and apprenticeships through the Construction Sector Deal which aims to transform the productivity of the sector.

The deal sets an industry-led target of increasing the number of apprenticeships starts to 25,000 per annum by 2020. Other measures include £34m investment in the Construction Skills Fund, to establish 20 onsite training hubs by 2020; an improved careers portal for the sector (through CITB’s GoConstruct), to help improve diversity of recruitment; work with industry to ensure sufficient high-quality work placements are available for the introduction of construction T Levels in 2020; and using public procurement to help drive investment in construction skills.