Missing Builders Imperil Labour's Housing Plan
There aren’t enough people to do the work the UK opposition is promising.
Builders work on a residential construction site.
Photographer: Bloomberg/BloombergThe Labour Party says it will deliver 1.5 million homes in five years, returning UK construction to its fastest pace since the 1970s with a package of housing, planning and land-market policies designed to break the logjam that has frustrated the ruling Conservatives. It just isn’t at all clear who will do the building.
Britain’s declining and ageing construction workforce is arguably the biggest impediment to Labour leader Keir Starmer’s plan for addressing the housing crisis. The industry’s labor pool fell to 2.1 million people in the first quarter, the lowest in more than two decades, having shrunk by 347,000 workers, or 14%, in the last five years. Labour’s target implies an annual equivalent of 300,000 additional homes, or a fifth more than the highest total achieved by the government in any of the past 14 years. That’s a big ask for such a diminished army of builders.