Full Transcript

[Intro music plays]

0:00 — Introduction & Teaser

[0:00] Rachel Maclean: I think a target is helpful, but it's not enough. It's not the whole story.

[0:03] Rachel Maclean: Don't just push your kids into university necessarily. Look for that apprenticeship.

[0:06] Iona Stewart-Richardson: Mm-hmm.

[0:07] Iona Stewart-Richardson: Someone once said to me, "If you look out the window and you see cranes being built, you know that the economy's doing well."

[Theme music fades]

0:14 — Welcome & Guest Background

[0:14] Iona Stewart-Richardson: Hello, and welcome to Build Up From the Basement, our podcast down here in the basement of the Federation of Master Builders.

[0:23] Iona Stewart-Richardson: I'm absolutely delighted to say that we have Rachel Maclean, Baroness Maclean, joining us today. Hello, Baroness. How are you?

[0:30] Rachel Maclean: I'm good, thank you. Bit wet, but not too bad. How are you?

[0:34] Iona Stewart-Richardson: Thank you so much for joining us.

[0:36] Rachel Maclean: Very well, thank you.

[0:38] Iona Stewart-Richardson: So you were the MP for Redditch for seven years.

[0:40] Rachel Maclean: Yes.

[0:41] Iona Stewart-Richardson: Then you were elevated to the Lords.

[0:43] Rachel Maclean: Yes.

[0:44] Iona Stewart-Richardson: And you were also Minister of State for Housing in 2023, so you've got a brilliant background. Delighted you can join us.

[0:50] Rachel Maclean: Thank you.

0:44 — Rachel's Personal Building Experience

[0:51] Iona Stewart-Richardson: So let's start first of all. Have you had any building work done, and what was your experience? Anything at all.

[0:56] Rachel Maclean: Yeah, we have actually. Over the course of our marriage and family life, we've often bought houses that need loads of work doing, mostly in the West Midlands area, around where we'd been living before we ended up moving to London.

[1:12] Rachel Maclean: It's basically been quite good with probably some of the usual hiccups. I think I said to my husband, every single time we go and get a building quote, they say something like, "It'll take 10 weeks," and it always takes six months.

[1:31] Iona Stewart-Richardson: And was that the case? Were they slightly delayed?

[1:34] Rachel Maclean: Yeah, yeah. Every single thing has taken at least six months.

1:31 — Finding a Builder: Word of Mouth

[1:42] Iona Stewart-Richardson: And how did you go about finding your builder? Was it personal recommendation?

[1:46] Rachel Maclean: Yes. Always word of mouth. That's what we've done. Always word of mouth.

[1:52] Iona Stewart-Richardson: Yeah, okay.

[1:54] Rachel Maclean: I don't know 'cause I'm going back a few years now, but definitely I think word of mouth is a strong one. But I also think things like FMB, that kind of membership is really quite helpful as well.

2:00 — FMB Accreditation & Consumer Protection

[2:05] Iona Stewart-Richardson: Thank you very much. I mean, we are obviously the only accredited body, so people do rely on us when searching for a builder.

[2:13] Iona Stewart-Richardson: So as Housing Minister, you were overseeing quite a lot of major reforms to planning, brownfield regeneration, and leasehold. In your opinion, what is the biggest obstacle preventing Britain from building?

2:20 — The Biggest Obstacle to Building in Britain

[2:26] Rachel Maclean: I think it's a combination of a couple of things. I think it's a combination of the politics and the policy, and they're two different things. They're not the same.

[2:36] Rachel Maclean: And often, the government and civil servants and ministers are very good at doing the policy, but they're really terrible at doing the politics.

[2:44] Rachel Maclean: When you are actually elected, you realize how difficult it is to get anything built because it's just very, very unpopular with everybody. Doesn't really matter where you are in the country, almost everywhere, you will just be unpopular if you want to build something next to somebody's view or football pitch or old field where they've always walked their dog.

[3:04] Rachel Maclean: So having a policy that will overcome that is the holy grail, and I think lots of governments have really struggled with it. And we've all seen that we've had targets. Let me just say that we as the Conservative government actually did hit our target. We said we'd build a million homes, and we did.

[3:24] Rachel Maclean: But I don't think this current government will be able to build 1.5 million because not only have they not got the politics right, but they also don't have the policies.

3:33 — Government Housing Targets: Numbers vs Reality

[3:38] Iona Stewart-Richardson: So let's talk a little bit more about government housing targets. A lot of people are coming out saying that they're not going to make them. What do you think? Is it all about targets?

[3:50] Iona Stewart-Richardson: Because actually, talking of Conservatives, we had Kit Malthouse in our series one, who was talking about when he was housing minister, and he raised exactly the same problem that you've just raised between the bureaucracy and actually getting the houses built.

[4:05] Iona Stewart-Richardson: So what can be done? What's the answer?

[4:08] Rachel Maclean: Well, the first thing is don't trash the economy like the current government have done, because housing is a business. Your members are businesses. They engage with policy, but what they want is predictability and a stable policy, and also a good economy so that they can make money and grow their businesses.

[4:28] Rachel Maclean: As long as they've got that, they'll go out and do what they do best. At the moment, the economy is depressed, inflation is massively high, so of course, that affects their costings when they're going for a job. All the taxes that this government are putting on businesses makes it really hard to run a business, and we see so many businesses closing.

[4:52] Rachel Maclean: The general economic situation is, in my view, the most fundamental thing. Housing is a market. People haven't got the money to buy a house, they don't feel confident about it. They're not going to go out and buy a house and then want one of your members to come and fix it.

4:48 — Economic Fundamentals Drive Housing

[4:56] Iona Stewart-Richardson: We had that point made to us. So his target was the same as the current government. That just shows that the targets have stayed the same. Are they just numbers?

[5:06] Rachel Maclean: Well, I think a target is helpful. And when you are a government minister, it's also very helpful because that means that you can take on bureaucracy if it exists inside your department and say, "Well, look, we were elected on this. So you civil servants, you have to go away and figure out a way for it to happen."

[5:28] Rachel Maclean: So they come back to you and say, "Oh, well, Minister, I'm afraid we can't do it because there's an environmental regulation." Okay, well, we need to work out what that is. We can't just accept you telling me that we're not doing anything. We have to figure out a way through this.

[5:48] Rachel Maclean: So I think a target is helpful, but it's not enough. It's not the whole story. It's the economic situation.

[5:56] Rachel Maclean: If you look at the trend — there's some very good graphs which show that the worst year for housing starts was just right after the great financial crash of 2008, 2009. And it starts ticking up year after year as we come into government in 2010 and it does quite well. And obviously, it falls off a cliff again after COVID and the supply chain shock there. And it's declining year on year now with this current government.

[6:18] Rachel Maclean: So that just shows you that those economic fundamentals are pretty vital.

6:03 — The Chicken-and-Egg of Cranes and Growth

[6:20] Iona Stewart-Richardson: Yeah, it's really interesting. Someone once said to me, "If you look out the window and you see cranes being built, you know that the economy's doing well."

[6:28] Rachel Maclean: Yeah, exactly. It's a chicken-and-egg thing, isn't it? Do the builders need the economy to start working before they build?

[6:36] Iona Stewart-Richardson: Yeah, yeah. Very interesting.

6:28 — Housing Issues in Redditch

[6:38] Iona Stewart-Richardson: Let's talk about Redditch. Did you have any major concerns or flags with people about housing in Redditch? Were there any concerns specific to your constituency?

[6:48] Rachel Maclean: We did have quite a few problems with the adoption of new estates, which I think is a common thing that you're probably familiar with.

[6:56] Rachel Maclean: We did have problems with quality of construction, because it's a new town. Everything's all built at once. So you could see that whoever'd built it had just put up loads and loads of streets, and then it was all starting to deteriorate around the same time.

[7:12] Iona Stewart-Richardson: So that is really tough because you've got a council which doesn't necessarily have loads of money to replace it all.

[7:18] Rachel Maclean: A lot of it was social housing, and it was in quite a poor state.

[7:22] Iona Stewart-Richardson: Right, okay. So there was the inevitable issues that come from that.

7:12 — Why Housing Is Core to Everything

[7:27] Rachel Maclean: Housing is just the core for everything. Any kind of government policy. If you haven't got a decent house, then you're going to struggle to be happy, to have good mental health, to work, to earn money, to sustain a family. It's just so vital.

7:28 — Rogue Builders & the Case for Licensing

[7:33] Iona Stewart-Richardson: And let's talk about quality. One massive thing that the FMB is campaigning on is licensing. We want to improve quality and provide a safety net for homeowners who have lost £14.3 billion to rogue builders over the last five years.

[7:51] Rachel Maclean: [Laughs] Wow. Which is a lot of money which could be going into the economy.

[7:56] Iona Stewart-Richardson: It is. So my first question is, did you have anyone in your constituency who came to you with problems of rogue builders, and how did you deal with those?

8:24 — MPs and Private Disputes: Limits of Power

[8:28] Rachel Maclean: It did come up from time to time. As an MP, it's quite limited in what you can do there because you can't just intervene in a private dispute. If it involves a local authority, if it's a social housing issue, then yes, you can. If it's a private individual, there's very little you can do.

[8:49] Rachel Maclean: We did hear stories from time to time in my surgery of that kind of thing. If they're doing things that are literally illegal, you can start to report them and so on. But that's very tricky for trading standards. It's not always easy to get the evidence.

[9:07] Iona Stewart-Richardson: This is exactly what we're finding. So actually, the safety net at the minute — well, there isn't one. All of these people can't actually go to court for over a certain amount because it's just not sufficient.

[9:19] Iona Stewart-Richardson: And as an MP, as you've just said, it's quite difficult to advise on what to do. So would a mandatory licensing system that protects homeowners, a regulation, a body that regulates, would that be a potential answer to some of these problems?

8:44 — Regulation Without Burden

[9:36] Rachel Maclean: I think it's something that should be looked at. I'm a bit instinctively cautious when it comes to "let's have more regulation" because often this isn't fit for purpose and the people doing the regulation are very poor. But like anything, there's a problem here. Let's work out how to fix it.

[9:56] Rachel Maclean: When you're thinking about the amount of money that's being spent on a home renovation, it's a very big cost. And it's something that you don't buy every day.

9:19 — Why Renovation Isn't Like Buying Groceries

[10:02] Rachel Maclean: You don't necessarily know — it's not like, "I bought it from Sainsbury's, so I'm going to go to ASDA next week because their strawberries are terrible." It's not the same kind of purchase, is it?

[10:13] Iona Stewart-Richardson: You're absolutely right.

9:31 — How Homeowners Fund Renovations

[10:15] Iona Stewart-Richardson: We're actually doing some research at the minute looking into why homeowners are getting renovations done. Is it because they've got a family member that's ill? Why are they doing it and how are they doing it? How are they getting the money? Are they remortgaging? Are they using their life savings?

[10:35] Iona Stewart-Richardson: That's the problem — a lot of these people use their life savings, and then don't have anything else to redo the job if it's been done badly.

[10:45] Rachel Maclean: Yeah, well, we did. We remortgaged for our first home extension when we were first married. And we had hardly any money. Literally none.

[10:56] Iona Stewart-Richardson: Yeah, it's quite common. That's what we did.

[10:59] Iona Stewart-Richardson: Well, we'll soon find out how common it is with our research. Anyway, thank you for that.

10:12 — Stamp Duty & Apprenticeship Incentives

[11:02] Iona Stewart-Richardson: Also, the other thing I wanted to talk to you about was stamp duty. Obviously this is an incentive to get first-time buyers on the ladder, which will hopefully in turn lead to more work for our members who will need domestic work done. What other kind of policies can we introduce to small building companies to incentivize them to want to take on apprenticeships?

[11:28] Rachel Maclean: I think apprenticeships are really important in the building trade. The whole skills thing is essential for this industry — getting the right people in.

10:34 — University vs Apprenticeships: A Parent's Perspective

[11:38] Rachel Maclean: It's interesting because I'm at the age now where a lot of my friends' children are just going into the workforce. When I went into the workforce — I'm 60, for full disclosure —

[11:47] Iona Stewart-Richardson: You look great.

[11:49] Rachel Maclean: [Laughs] Oh, that's very kind. Thank you.

[11:52] Rachel Maclean: But when I went into the workforce, it was all about university degree, get a degree, and then get a professional job. Things have changed so much now. I've got four children, and my youngest one did an apprenticeship, not in building, but in the motor industry.

[12:10] Rachel Maclean: He's got no student debt. He didn't go to university. He didn't have all that nonsense of just lying in bed and eating cornflakes and coming out with loads of debt and not having a job.

[12:23] Rachel Maclean: He's three years ahead of his peers. He's living in a lovely house. He can afford the rent and all the rest of it, and he's got a steady job, so he's loving life.

11:33 — The Tide Is Turning on University

[12:33] Rachel Maclean: Actually now we're seeing the tide turning. A lot of my friends who themselves went to university because they were encouraged to do it — it was all like, "You should go to university" — they're now saying to their own children, "Just don't bother with it. Look for an apprenticeship."

[12:52] Rachel Maclean: I have got one or two who've gone into the building trade, and they're loving it. They're finding out that there's so many opportunities there.

[13:00] Rachel Maclean: I do say to all my friends, don't just push your kids into university necessarily. Look for that apprenticeship. I actually think it's about more than just what the school says.

12:00 — Student Debt vs Earning Sooner

[13:12] Iona Stewart-Richardson: Absolutely. It's about the whole cultural approach to it, isn't it? You do need those parents as well, even ones that have been to university themselves, to say, "Well, you're going to have all this debt. Is it worth it?"

[13:27] Rachel Maclean: There's so much research now that suggests you'll come out with all this debt and you're just not going to earn as much. You'll spend the whole of your life paying off the interest, and the interest rate is terrible.

[13:42] Iona Stewart-Richardson: I'm nodding because I'm in that situation. We won't go into it. But you're right.

12:53 — Will AI Replace Construction Jobs?

[13:48] Iona Stewart-Richardson: People are encouraged to go to university now, but I wonder if things like the introduction of AI might steer people towards industries like ours where it's a manual job. At the end of the day, you're not going to have a robot building a house. You're still going to need someone who's accountable. They're always going to need craftspeople, people who are good with their hands.

[14:08] Rachel Maclean: I agree with that broadly, but I actually think it's more subtle than that. You may well have a robot building a house. You've got lots of factories that fabricate houses and so on. AI will play a part in this industry, as it does with every industry.

[14:28] Rachel Maclean: But you still need that human expertise and knowledge of a craft in order to actually instruct the AI and the robots what to do. They can't replace that at the moment. I think it'll be a long time until they can, if ever.

[14:46] Rachel Maclean: There's still going to be money to be made in building. It's about getting into that industry and understanding the fundamentals and building a strong economic foundation so it can thrive.

13:52 — Changing Perceptions of the Construction Industry

[14:58] Iona Stewart-Richardson: You're right about parents backing it, because we did some research last year that found under half of parents would encourage their child to take up a career in construction.

[15:08] Iona Stewart-Richardson: I think personally it's a wider issue over how people see the industry. It's not regarded in the same way as being a lawyer. So what can be done to change the perception of the industry?

[15:22] Rachel Maclean: I think it's very good to start having those conversations, and have them more widely, and I think you're doing a great job here. Back to the AI — law is the first thing that's going to be completely outsourced to AI, in my view. It's already happening. What you might have thought is the prestige career is actually not going to be that way.

14:33 — Law: The First Career AI Will Disrupt

[15:44] Iona Stewart-Richardson: Also, all these apprentices — we've got Apprenticeship Week coming up. We had one MP come in and say, "We could do an advert for the construction sector that's like that really attractive Army advert." Maybe it's something as simple as that, just to put it out there.

14:54 — Apprenticeship Week & Recruitment Ideas

[15:58] Iona Stewart-Richardson: What's your message to anyone who's maybe thinking, "I don't know what to do. I'm quite good with my hands," and considering taking up a career in construction?

15:27 — Advice for Young People Considering Construction

[16:04] Rachel Maclean: Absolutely. Keep an open mind. Just go and talk to people already doing it. Ask to go and spend a day with them. My experience is that young people just haven't got a clue what it's actually like to work before they start work.

[16:21] Rachel Maclean: The things that you thought were boring or bad, when you actually go and do them, you'll probably find they're really fun. You'll meet nice people. You'll have a laugh. You'll go to the pub at the end of the day, and you'll earn money. What's not to like?

[16:36] Rachel Maclean: I was like that when I was a young person. I was like, "Oh, I can't work in an office. It's terrible." And I've spent all my life working in offices, and it's been great.

[16:47] Rachel Maclean: Teachers do a great job, but all they know about careers is teaching. So how can they possibly really advise? Go and just get as much actual real-life experience as you can. Reach out to a local building firm and say, "Look, what have you got to offer?"

16:20 — FE Colleges & Local Employer Links

[17:05] Rachel Maclean: Yeah, totally. I'm sure that there are schemes. A little plug for where I used to be the MP — they did a brilliant job in the FE college. They've got a really good construction industry apprenticeship program.

[17:22] Rachel Maclean: They have brilliant links with local employers. I used to go and visit them a lot. They opened a whole new construction trades centre. They were having school days and school links. So if that can be done, brilliant.

16:39 — The Apprenticeship Wage Debate

[17:34] Rachel Maclean: Local partners are doing it. And obviously the government needs to do it as well. I think the government does need to look at the apprenticeship wage. I actually don't know what it is now, but it was always regarded as a little bit low. There's a case to make sure that it's a decent wage so that if you're going to commit to it, it's enough.

[17:58] Iona Stewart-Richardson: As well as the wage — obviously we've got national insurance, all these hikes. There aren't very many incentives for our members or these small building companies to take on apprenticeships. What can we do to make it easier for them? Can we give them tax breaks?

17:28 — Taxation Burden on Small Businesses

[18:10] Rachel Maclean: I go back to my first point: the general taxation approach on small businesses is just way too heavy, in terms of the business rates, the employers' national insurance, and then all the new restrictions coming down the tracks on employment rights. I think all of that needs to be reversed.

[18:30] Rachel Maclean: If we were in government, we would reverse all of that. We would massively reform the taxation burden on businesses because people in the government now have never run a business. They haven't got the first idea what it actually means to wake up and worry about meeting a payroll. They don't understand what it's like to take a risk with your own personal capital or something you borrowed to start a business.

18:20 — Government's Lack of Business Understanding

[18:56] Rachel Maclean: They just think the businesses are going to keep going and generate more tax. Well, that's not what happens. Businesses close. Or you just don't even take somebody on. So that's somebody else that you've just not even taken on, opportunities that you can't take.

18:46 — The Skills Shortage & Aging Workforce

[19:00] Iona Stewart-Richardson: And then you're not training the skilled. We've got, as you said earlier, a massive skill shortage, an aging construction worker population. How are we going to be able to pass these things on to these young people?

[19:14] Rachel Maclean: Totally. It's a real problem.

19:19 — Why Small Builders Are Struggling

[19:19] Rachel Maclean: In terms of the FMB membership, when I was housing minister, I spent a lot of time talking to smaller builders. That's a sector that's really struggling in particular because if you're a smaller builder, the odds are just stacked against you in every way — in terms of the planning and the regulations, your access to small sites, your access to any funding that some of the bigger builders might get from Homes England, dealing with local authorities.

[19:52] Rachel Maclean: Running a business when you're smaller is harder because your overheads are the same in some ways, but your profit is less. So it's much harder to sustain that uncertainty.

20:11 — The Pipeline Problem: Big vs Small Developers

[20:06] Rachel Maclean: Lots of them would say to me, "The trouble is if you're Barratts, even if it's a bit tough, you've still got lots of sites coming on stream. You've got a pipeline." Whereas if you're just a small outfit, you might just have one site.

[20:24] Iona Stewart-Richardson: Some of our members — exactly, that's their business model. They'll do one at a time.

[20:30] Iona Stewart-Richardson: And then if that doesn't work or they can't get planning permission for that, all of a sudden a whole load of cost comes along and it doubles your costs overnight because of some regulation. That might be the difference between actually surviving and going bust.

[20:45] Iona Stewart-Richardson: And actually also, the transition from builder to developer makes that pretty tricky as well.

20:52 — The Builder-to-Developer Transition

[20:52] Rachel Maclean: I'm not surprised. Yeah.

[20:55] Iona Stewart-Richardson: Very interesting. Let's talk a little bit more about your time as the Minister of State for Housing. What did you learn? What was the most interesting part of the job?

21:12 — Life as Housing Minister: Everybody Hates You

[21:08] Rachel Maclean: It was a fascinating job. Really hard work. It was the hardest in the technical and the political way. The first thing I learned was when you're housing minister, everybody hates you.

[21:23] Rachel Maclean: The minute you go out of your office, you'll see a colleague in the corridor saying, "I just need to talk to you about this, about the A1." Or, "This particular junction of the road which the local council needs to adopt and it hasn't happened and I need you to fix it now."

[21:42] Rachel Maclean: And then the next person would say, "They're going to come and build 300 houses in a field next to this lovely river, and you've got to stop that." It's like, "I can't stop these things. I can't stop any of these."

[21:58] Rachel Maclean: By the time I'd gone for a cup of tea, I'd have had 20 people lobbying me.

[22:02] Iona Stewart-Richardson: So it's a difficult job. Really hard job.

22:06 — Judgment-Based vs Rules-Based Planning

[22:08] Rachel Maclean: The second thing I learned was that the planning system is just illogical with this judgment-based system. There's either a judgment-based system, which we have, or there's a rules-based system, which countries like New Zealand and others have. Like zoning.

[22:28] Rachel Maclean: We have the former, and it's caused so many of the problems. The latter just seems to be better.

[22:35] Iona Stewart-Richardson: Can you just unpick that a little bit? Explain why that would work better.

22:25 — Why Zoning Works Better (New Zealand Model)

[22:44] Rachel Maclean: Every single planning decision is a judgment on the merits of the application itself, rather than "this area is zoned for housing. As long as you build housing with windows and doors and it's insulated, it can go ahead."

[23:00] Rachel Maclean: Every single thing not only has to meet the regulations, but it also has to be consulted on by local people and voted on by people who might lose their seats if they vote for something.

23:00 — Councils That Campaign Against Building

[23:14] Rachel Maclean: That causes so many logjams in the system. There are so many councils who just don't want to build anything, and they actually campaign on not building things. And then we're trying to incentivize them to build things, but there's no incentive. The incentives don't work for them to actually build things.

[23:30] Iona Stewart-Richardson: And what about planning departments? Do you think that they're critically underfunded? Do you think they need more resource?

23:06 — Underfunded Planning Departments

[23:38] Rachel Maclean: Yes, clearly there has been a problem there historically. That's something that was flagged to me over and over again. When we came in, we had a program putting more resources in, working with the professional body whose name I've forgotten, I'm afraid.

23:44 — The Perfect Storm: Less Resource, More Regulation

[24:02] Rachel Maclean: Every time I talked to builders, your members, or other actors, they would say, "There's just not enough resource in planning. That's why it takes so long." Not only that, the regulations are getting more complicated all the time, so you've got a perfect storm for people navigating throughout.

[24:22] Iona Stewart-Richardson: That's very interesting.

24:06 — Magic Wand: Smaller Sites for Smaller Builders

[24:24] Iona Stewart-Richardson: This is my final question. If you could wave a magic wand and introduce anything you wanted for either the construction sector or small companies — a change in tax — what would you introduce?

[24:42] Rachel Maclean: I'm going to try and be specific. I think there is a lot that we can do around smaller sites, smaller plots of land. There's a group in parliament that represents small builders, and I know that your members have been part of it.

[24:58] Rachel Maclean: They produced a really good paper which had a lot of very specific policies about how it would be much easier to release smaller sites more quickly, which of course would benefit smaller building companies.

[25:12] Rachel Maclean: Making it more accessible and releasing some of the burdens on them, like getting them through the planning system faster, lowering some of the requirements on them. Within reason, I think that would be really helpful because it would do two things: it would bring on more houses and also help smaller builders.

25:09 — Local Builders Soften Community Opposition

[25:44] Iona Stewart-Richardson: Do you think having local builders helps soften the blow for people who don't want the building work in the first place?

[25:51] Rachel Maclean: Yes, and I was going to come on to say that. There is a really good policy reason for encouraging smaller builders and having a variety in the market. If you've actually got a local builder who people know — this is the bloke they see in the pub, they've been to school with the kids, they know the area — and they build nicer looking homes.

[26:10] Rachel Maclean: You're still going to find people that object, don't get me wrong. But in my experience, often some of those very locally embedded schemes were much more acceptable, because people will go, "Okay, fair enough. I know we need a house, and it's built by somebody that we know. It's good quality. It looks nice. It's going to be for a local family. It's more affordable."

[26:30] Rachel Maclean: They've thought about the impact on the area. That is a lot more acceptable than, "Let's just build a massive great big estate on the nearest bit of greenbelt land." However, we need both. We need a thriving market with choice.

25:51 — The Monopolistic Housing Market

[26:46] Rachel Maclean: The market has changed fundamentally because it's much more monopolistic now than it was even 10 or 15 years ago because there just isn't the choice.

[26:56] Iona Stewart-Richardson: Even with the government's warm homes, they've introduced a body now trying to work out procurement plans to prioritize our members. Is that going to be enough?

[27:06] Rachel Maclean: That's quite good. I wonder if that will be enough. The devil is always in the detail with these kinds of things.

[27:14] Iona Stewart-Richardson: It probably isn't. You just need to keep on talking to people.

[27:18] Rachel Maclean: Yeah. I found the most useful thing that I ever did when I was a minister in any department was actually go out of the department and talk to people who are experiencing the policies, whether it's builders or planners or all of it.

26:15 — Closing & Thanks

[27:30] Iona Stewart-Richardson: Thank you very much everyone who's been watching and listening. Thank you, Baroness, for taking time out of your very busy day to come and join us at the Federation of Master Builders.

[27:40] Rachel Maclean: My pleasure.

[Outro music plays]

End of Transcript