Builder licensing: how to raise standards and protect homeowners

 

SOUND CUE: Intro music plays 

TIME 0m00s - Cold Open, A Systemic Failure to Protect People 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - There's a clear systemic failure of the system here to actually protect people. Anyone will know, particularly when we've got local authorities undergoing massive reorganization, just trying to get the basics right is difficult, and it's a fair point. My frustration is quite often when it comes to legislation, we like to reinvent the wheel. There are great examples already from devolved nations, or various other countries around the world, where we can actually try to take inspiration from what they do.

 

TIME 0m34s - Welcome and Guest Introduction 

SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - Hello, and welcome to our episode of Build Up From the Basement. I'm absolutely delighted to say that we've got Tom Gordon, Lib Dem MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough. Hello, Tom. How are you? 

 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - Great, thank you very much. Thank you for having me. TIME 0m46s - How Tom Got Involved, Rogue Builder Casework 

 

SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - Good, well, I'm so glad to see you. Let's give our listeners a bit of context: I met you when I was working in Parliament for Mark Garnier, and we met because we were talking about a constituent of yours who had experienced a rogue builder. So Tom, without identifying the cases, what's your experience as an MP dealing with constituents going through this?

 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - There's far more of this happening than I thought. Originally you get one email in and think, "It's probably a one-off." Then you get the second, the third, the fourth, and before you know it, there's a clear systemic failure of the system here to actually protect people. There are always wrong'uns out there trying to make a quick buck, but what we're seeing with some people in the industry is that they're completely exploiting people and ruining their lives. The amount of conversations I've had with constituents where people have come out, done work in the house that's wrong, left, and not paid properly, it's across the board. There's a whole host of issues. It's great that you're highlighting some of this with the podcast. What's clear to me is that Parliament hasn't really got a grip of this, and the local authorities and councils who should be regulating, planning, and enforcing aren't doing their jobs. There's a massive gap that people are falling through. 

 

TIME 2m18s - The Licensing Gap, Why Homeowners Don't Know the Sector Is Unregulated 

SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - And don't you think there's a gap with homeowners understanding that this sector isn't licensed? 

 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - Exactly that. Time and again, it's only when things go wrong that people look for help, and when they need it, it's just not there. 

 

SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - Too late. So in terms of the legal system, I know your job as an MP isn't to advise, but what's actually there for these constituents? 

 

TIME 2m44s - TrustMark and Toothless Regulators

 SPEAKER Tom Gordon - Quite often we end up with ombudsmen or watchdogs, toothless, ineffective organizations. They might be quangos, arm's-length government departments. The main one that springs to mind is TrustMark, which is meant to be the regulator for people who've had spray foam insulation. Every time you ask a government minister about something going wrong, they say, "The government-approved regulator is there to help." But they can't actually do anything, they can only take action against companies that haven't gone insolvent or deliberately liquidated. There are so many workarounds; it's a complete lack of regulation to support people. 

TIME 3m24s - Companies House Reform, Phoenixing and Rogue Builders Moving Areas 

SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - It's interesting what you said, because we had Sarah Edwards, the Labour MP, in recently talking about changes coming to Companies House. She's right, there are changes, but they don't go far enough. They don't tell you if a builder is legitimate, and they don't tell you about phoenixing, which I imagine has affected a lot of your constituents. And you must have to liaise with other MPs, because these builders just pop up across the country starting new companies. 

 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - Absolutely. People will move area, put the business in someone else's name but still operate it at arm's length. The changes to Companies House are genuinely positive, they should make it more transparent and clearer, but we need to think about what the next workaround will be, because that will happen almost certainly. 

 

TIME 4m22s - Is TrustMark Fit for Purpose 

SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - You said TrustMark wasn't fit for purpose, is that from your constituents' experiences using their website and not getting support? 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - It's across the board. This is a scheme with the government's seal of approval, schemes and suppliers the government has backed and funded. But when something goes wrong, they wash their hands of it. There are very few cases where I've seen TrustMark actually help someone get a resolution, compensation, or financial support. It's just not working. 

TIME 5m13s - Licensing and a Sector-Wide Compensation Pot 

 

SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - Let's talk about licensing and how it could work in practice, we've had Gideon Amos on, the Lib Dem housing spokesperson, who said he'd look into putting licensing on the Lib Dem manifesto. So how would it work? 

 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - Really good question, I don't have a definitive answer, but it's about principles. We don't want a licensing system that prohibits house building or restricts supply and demand. We don't want to push people into an easier sector, and it can't be too cumbersome, it needs to be easy, and consistent across different local authorities. A licensing scheme would be run by local authorities, and the challenge, take my own North Yorkshire Council, is that enforcement teams for highways or planning are dealing with too great a volume to do the job effectively. If you invest upfront in enforcement, you save money down the line and get a better system for everyone. The same principle applies to licensing. 

 

TIME 6m45s - Could a Compensation Fund Work Like Other Regulated Sectors

 

 SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - If you go to court, you can only claim a certain amount. Could there be a pot the industry pays into, so homeowners who are ripped off can claim from it, like other regulated sectors? 

 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - That's definitely an idea, though I'd rather we stop things going wrong in the first place. Certainly if we're licensing people, that's one way of knowing who to go to for contributions, licensing helps identify who those people are. For me it's not about ideology. Any scheme, including a compensation scheme, needs buy-in from the sector, from organizations like yours, from suppliers, tradespeople, and importantly the consumer, who needs to have faith it will work. What we don't want is something great on paper that becomes a nightmare the minute you try to use it, we see that too often with legislation out of Westminster: good intentions, unintended consequences. 

 

TIME 8m07s - Who Should Regulate, Local Authorities or a Body Like the FMB 

 

SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - Local authorities are already struggling with planning applications, could it fall to a body like the FMB instead? 

 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - Quite possibly, I'm flexible on who takes on that responsibility, but whoever it is needs proper input and support from local authorities, central government, MHCLG, and other departments. Everyone needs to be pulling in the same direction. There's definitely a space for the likes of the FMB, but it needs to be easily accessible to the consumer. Anyone will know how difficult it is for local authorities right now, undergoing reorganization, to even get the basics right, that's a fair point about whether, as new councils are created, now's the time to give them additional licensing responsibilities. You could counter-argue they've got enough on. Maybe a trial is the answer, see what works, then roll it out, and look at what other countries do. My frustration is that we like to reinvent the wheel instead of learning from devolved nations and other countries. 

 

TIME 9m58s - Changing Public Perception of Construction Careers 

 

SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - Before we move off licensing, do you think licensing the sector would give construction more respect? It's barely offered to children at school as an option. Our research found under half of parents would encourage their child into a construction career. 

 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - That's a really big question. I'm from an ex-mining town, most people I went to school with went into a trade; relatively few, including me, went to university. It's frustrating when the government talks about housing targets, building hundreds of thousands, millions of homes, because we don't have the people to do it. We used to have EU workers who could come more easily; that's dried up. There's a wider point about changing the mindset of the next generation, and it's not just houses, it's GP surgeries, schools, key infrastructure. We're lacking that now. There's a real negative connotation around housing, as if it detracts from an area rather than adding value. If schools instilled the idea that this is a proper profession and gave it more air time, that would benefit everyone.

SOUND CUE: Laughter 

 

TIME 12m02s - The Bow Tie and the Radiator, An MP's Trade Confession 

 

SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - Hang on, Tom, important question. If you had to take up a trade, which one? 

 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - (Laughs) I do have an answer. I recently had an issue, I was tying a bow tie in the mirror using a YouTube video balanced on the radiator. I knocked the phone down the back of the radiator. 

 

SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - (Laughter) No! 

 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - I was heading to a Stray Ferret business awards event and ended up sitting next to some plumbing and heating engineers, explaining why I was an hour late, trying to fish my phone out with a badminton racket. 

 

SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - (Laughter) That's brilliant. 

 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - They were fantastic, MJ Ryder, based in Knaresborough, and sent someone out the next morning who got it out in about five minutes. So if I'm picking a trade, it'd be plumbing and heating. TIME 14m09s - Constituency Case Study, Infrastructure Promises versus Delivery 

 

SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - Let's talk about your constituency and infrastructure, how do we make sure places can actually support new housing?

 

 SPEAKER Tom Gordon - We've got housing developments across Harrogate, Knaresborough, and smaller villages. People get frustrated because they see the houses go in, but infrastructure is promised and rarely delivered, and that's not always the developer's fault. Section 106 or CIL money often just sits there, with the local authority unclear on how much there is, when it must be spent, and what on. We should do a much better job of delivering what the community actually wants, distinguishing between things needed immediately and longer-term aspirations. 

 

TIME 15m30s - The Knaresborough Rail Halt That Never Happened One new development outside Knaresborough left land for a future train halt. There was miscommunication between the local authority, developer, and people selling houses, buyers assumed a rail halt was guaranteed, but the council said it wasn't happening, tied into wider capacity issues on the York to Knaresborough line. 

 

TIME 16m12s - Bus Links Built Too Late in West Harrogate A new estate on the west of Harrogate had no bus links for a long time, the trigger point for bus service to begin was set so far into the development timeline that hundreds of residents had already formed the habit of driving everywhere by the time it arrived.

 

 TIME 17m15s - The Drainage Deadlock, When No One Will Fix the Road In one case, a developer built exactly to their approved plan, but the drainage wasn't up to the water authority's adoption standard, so the council won't adopt the highway until the water board adopts the drainage, and the water board says it wasn't built to spec. Residents are left driving on roads "like the surface of the moon" for years. A similar case near Tom's mother's ward in Knottingley, Wakefield, saw the council step in and resurface the road at local taxpayers' expense, even though it shouldn't have had to. 

 

TIME 18m20s - Killinghall, New-Build Homeowners Left to Fight for the Whole Estate On a development in Killinghall, three and four bed detached homes worth 800K pounds or more, the site was left with rubble, blocked drains, dropped kerbs, and pooling water despite being declared "finished." Residents with jobs and families have effectively had to become spokespeople for the entire estate, dealing with the developer themselves. It only takes one bad instance to make headlines and tarnish the reputation of the many developers doing the right thing. 

 

TIME 19m13s - Why We Need More Small, Local Builders 

 

SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - Local builders used to build over half of UK homes; now it's under 10 percent. How do we get small builders competing for land against the big players? 

 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - When local authorities develop local plans and call for sites, it comes down to who the landowners know and who's easy to deal with, smaller businesses get priced out and lack the capital to compete. That matters because large developers building "cookie-cutter" housing produce bland, samey developments that could be anywhere, and the profits often don't stay in the local area. Local builders reinvest in their own staff and local suppliers, every pound gets recycled multiple times in the local economy, and that helps train the next generation of local builders. 

 

TIME 21m32s - Using Local Materials and Supporting Small Building Firms

 

 SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - Reform in Wales has a policy pushing for locally sourced materials like Welsh slate, great in principle, but expensive. What else could help small building companies, there are no tax breaks, apprentices cost a fortune. If you could wave a magic wand, what would the Lib Dems do

 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - Using local materials is a great point, but people often oppose quarrying for aggregates, and we've already got a shortage of both materials and people to build at the level government wants. On top of that, the cost of doing business in the UK, increased minimum wage, the Employment Rights Bill, family business tax, employer NICs, all pushes up the cost of housing and rents. We want to see much more social housing, with local authorities given the tools to build it, and local builders should be prioritized for those contracts.

 

 TIME 23m56s - Apprenticeship Cuts and the Damage to Skills Quality 

 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - I visited a local business, Berry Harrogan, that repairs and installs heritage windows. They used to take on multiple apprentices a year but are now cutting back, partly due to changes to endpoint assessment, which risks damaging the quality of training. Multiple organizations wrote to the PM about this, diluting rigorous qualification with more internal assessment and coursework will cost everyone more down the line. An apprentice now costs over 20K pounds a year with no guarantee they'll do the job well or stay, and firms can't guarantee they won't get poached by a competitor. 

 

TIME 26m39s - State of Trade, Inquiries Are Up, But Firms Can't Deliver 

 

SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - Our State of Trade survey shows inquiries are up, but firms can't deliver, partly due to an aging workforce. And with AI coming, how do we integrate that with the next generation? AI won't build a home, and 3D printers won't replace it either. 

 

TIME 26m52s - Can AI or Automation Replace Construction Trades 

 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - You can automate a production line, building houses isn't so easy. We're seeing more modular, pre-built components, but you still need someone on-site to assemble it. It's a sector with legs for the future, unlike office or computer-based work. We need to promote the sector and make it more attractive. 

 

TIME 27m16s - Respect for Skilled Trades, Comparing the UK to France

 

 SPEAKER Tom Gordon - Trades are often frowned upon, sneered at, and that's simply not the case. Without a bricklayer, a plumber, an electrician, you're pretty stuck. 

 

SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - In France, being a waiter is a respected, trained profession, here, it isn't. Construction gets the same lack of respect. Mayor Steve Rotherham told us on the podcast that his only options growing up were the army or construction, at least that was still an option. Now it's hard even to get a builder into schools to talk to kids. Should government be doing more with schools, rather than leaving it to industry?

 

 TIME 30m38s - Investing in Schools and Technical Education 

 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - When I was at Selby College, and later on its board of governors, they offered lots of trades in partnership with the sector, with bespoke environments simulating real worksites. Government needs to invest more here, but colleges are heavily reliant on the sector itself to fund and deliver it, government needs to stump up the cash. 

 

TIME 32m33s - The Human Cost, Mental and Physical Health Impact on Victims 

 

SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - Your constituent living in her garage because of building defects, how many times did you see her, and what was the impact on her physical and mental health?

 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - People who can't escape this are thinking about it 24 hours a day, it can be catastrophic for mental health, leading to social isolation, as people can't afford to go out or invite friends round. It feeds into physical health too, we saw through the pandemic how people, especially older and already frail residents, rapidly deteriorated without social contact. You can see it physically in people who've lived through nightmare building situations, they're tense, stressed, not sleeping, guarded. It affects mould exposure for children with asthma or respiratory conditions, and older or already-unwell victims see a visible, profound impact, not just on them, but their families.

 

 TIME 34m28s - Finding Skilled Tradespeople, A Regional Funding Mismatch SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - Our surveys show trades like carpentry are increasingly hard to find. How does government fill that gap? 

 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - When Harrogate College talked about apprenticeship changes, funding is now allocated regionally, meaning training doesn't always match local needs. Harrogate has a strong tourism and hospitality sector, needing a certain skills mix; my original hometown, ex-mining with glass factories, needs manual trades. If funding decisions are made Yorkshire-wide rather than locally, they won't match area-specific needs. Skills England has just moved from the DFE to the DWP, I'm reserving judgment, but I don't think shuffling departments alone is a magic fix. 

 

TIME 36m15s - The Spray Foam Insulation Scandal, How It Started

 

 SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - Before you came onto our radar with Mark, how did the spray foam insulation issue first land on your desk? 

 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - In December 2024 I secured an adjournment debate on spray foam insulation, the minister at the time was Miatta Fahnbulleh. For most people, correctly installed spray foam insulation is fine. But cowboys who installed it incorrectly caused serious damage, usually to roofs, and the knock-on effect is people can't get a mortgage or sell their property. A caseworker of mine spotted the pattern from constituent casework. One lady in Knaresborough now effectively lives in her garage because her house is covered in mould and damp, purely because the insulation wasn't installed properly, and all her capital and equity is tied up in that house. 

 

TIME 38m08s - Banks, Blanket Mortgage Bans and a National Scandal

 

 SPEAKER Tom Gordon - The BBC did investigative journalism and FOI'd the lending policies of high street banks and mortgage lenders, some had a blanket ban on lending against properties with spray foam insulation, leaving people trapped. One man in Knaresborough had a sale nearly fall through and only secured a mortgage at the last minute with a different provider. There's no escape from it, it's on your doorstep 24 hours a day, and that's devastating for mental health and wellbeing. 

 

TIME 39m41s - A Second Wave of Scammers Exploiting the Same Victims 

 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - What's even more worrying is that cowboys have started ringing homeowners, even those with correctly installed spray foam, telling them it needs removing "because of what's on the news," exploiting people at both the installation and removal stages. It's absolutely bonkers we've let this continue. I met Minister McCluskey around September last year with my colleague Vicky Slade, who's done fantastic work on this, they talked about stopping a blanket ban from high-street lenders, but we're still waiting to see. More importantly, we need to stop the same companies and directors from setting up, liquidating, and phoenixing under a new name, one individual I checked on Companies House has run 20 to 30 businesses. My own office manager's mother had spray foam installed and was then harassed by cold callers pushing removal, with no idea how they got her details.

 

 TIME 42m00s - Younger Homeowners at Risk from Online Reviews

 

 SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - Our research with the Homeowners Alliance found younger homeowners are actually more at risk of falling victim to rogue builders because they rely on online reviews, they see a cheap quote, the rogue turns up, and they're caught out at both ends of the market.

 

 TIME 43m02s - Why Spray Foam Victims Still Have No Compensation Scheme SPEAKER Tom Gordon - For solid wall insulation, government did announce compensation about a year and a bit ago, but not for spray foam, despite the exact same failings. There's no real difference, other than the government felt backed into a corner over solid wall insulation. I'm still trying to secure a Westminster Hall debate, because I'm certain colleagues from all parties and all corners of the country have the same casework, and we need government to put down concrete proposals to fix this. 

 

SOUND CUE: Laughter TIME 44m34s - What Actually Happens in a Westminster Hall Debate SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - For members who don't know what a Westminster Hall debate actually means, can you explain its significance?

 

 SPEAKER Tom Gordon - Getting one is a big deal, I've been applying for one on spray foam insulation since that 2024 adjournment debate. There are different routes: a backbench business debate needs cross-party support, and there are relatively few debate slots each week. Securing one is a bit like winning the lottery in Parliament, not quite as big as a PMQ, but not far off. 

 

TIME 45m35s - Tom's First PMQ, A Cross-Party Win on Mental Health 

 

SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - Have you had a PMQ yet?

 

 SPEAKER Tom Gordon - One, around November last year, about a huge mental health trust spanning from Durham to Selby, calling for a public inquiry after a string of failings. The same day, a Labour MP asked the same question, showing that cross-party consensus. Wes then held a meeting in Darlington before Christmas and launched a statutory public inquiry. Working across party lines with people like Mark, Conservatives, and Labour colleagues is really important, when it comes to issues affecting constituents, party politics matters less than fixing the problem.

 

 TIME 47m14s - Family Building Memories, Portakabins and a Grandfather's House 

SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - Apart from the radiator incident, have you had any other building work done, even as a child?

 

 SPEAKER Tom Gordon - My grandfather ran a haulage firm, so there were always Portakabins and site stuff around. My grandad built his own house next door to where my mum lives, and I can remember it being built. 

 

TIME 48m14s - A Message on Mental Health for Tradespeople 

SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - It's incredibly hard to be a builder, long hours, tough conditions, and now weather is holding up projects because sites aren't prepared for extreme heat. What's your message to members struggling with their mental health? 

 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - It's a real issue, particularly in a male-dominated sector where men don't like to talk about it. Organizations like Andy's Man Club do really important work, and Movember too, I took part last year. (Laughs) It was a look, very polarizing, but it achieved the objective of getting people talking. Government has rolled out a suicide prevention strategy focused on men's mental health, because suicide is a huge issue in construction, bigger than almost any other sector. There's a perception that if you're in a trade you're tough and just crack on, but the reality is we're all human. Giving more character and humanization to people in manual trades is exactly what's needed, it's not always plain sailing, weather causes delays no one can control, and it isn't always the builder's fault. People need to be a bit more accommodating and understanding. We're having more of these conversations as a society, but there's still a long way to go. 

 

TIME 50m20s - Closing 

SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - Long way to go. Tom Gordon, thank you so much for joining us. 

SPEAKER Tom Gordon - Thank you. I'm delighted to have been here. 

 

SPEAKER Iona Stewart-Richardson - And thank you everyone for listening and watching.

SOUND CUE: Outro music plays