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CIOB at the party conferences 2022

Over the course of September and October 2022, CIOB’s policy and public affairs team attended both Labour Party Conference (Liverpool – 25-28 September 2022) and Conservative Party Conference (Birmingham 2-5 October 2022).

This blog will take you through the various events, meetings and panels that the team attended or participated in at both Liverpool and Birmingham this year.

[edit] Labour Party Conference

Labour Party Conference took place in Liverpool between 25 and 28 September as Leader, Keir Starmer, unveiled his vision to unite the party and outlined plans for domestic and foreign policy and development. Tackling the climate crisis was the standing item on the agenda, with the conference slogan advocating for “a fairer, greener Britain”.

The atmosphere amongst Labour delegates and activists appeared optimistic. There was a real sense of opportunity for party victory in the next general election after a significant and consistent lead in political polls in recent weeks after then Prime Minister, Liz Truss’ tax-cutting mini budget left the country gripped by economic turmoil. The subsequent U-turn on measures in the mini budget, certainly proved problematic for the then Conservative Government, and instilled further confidence in the Labour Party’s path to power.

In his hour-long keynote speech, Starmer vowed to create a publicly owned, renewable energy company within the first year of a Labour government "to cut bills, create jobs and deliver energy independence". This builds on previous commitments to make the UK a clean energy superpower by 2030, through a major expansion of wind and solar energy. The leader also pledged to solve the housing crisis, by increasing homeownership by up to seventy percent, radically reforming the private rented sector (PRS), and restoring social housing to the second largest form of tenure. As part of his sustainable housing and energy missions, Starmer promised to deliver a mass programme of domestic insultation, which would involve upgrading 19 million homes in decade. Other announcements included plans for a major overhaul of the skills and apprenticeship system, including giving businesses more flexibility to invest in training, and devolving adult education skills spending to combined authorities.

On 26 September, CIOB’s policy and public affairs team held two fringe events covering skills, levelling-up and sustainable development. Our first event was in partnership with Centre for Cities. The event entitled, “What does the UK’s skills gap mean for the ‘levelling up’ agenda?” brought together Toby Perkins MP, Shadow Minister for Skills & Education, Joanne Anderson, Mayor of Liverpool, and Craig Battye, CIOB Trustee for a panel debate discussing the impact of the UK skills deficit on productivity in crucial sectors such as construction, and the role of skills policy in achieving levelling up.

Our second event, was in partnership with organisations which represent the built environment, including the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors(RICS) and Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI). The event, entitled, “What does sustainable development look like?”, brought together Paul Dennett, Salford City Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), Rebecca Long Bailey MP, and Chair of the Key Cities All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG), and representatives from the Joint Institutes, for a panel discussion on how to make sustainable development and living more accessible and affordable for all.

On 27 September, CIOB’s policy and public affairs officer for the North, also participated in the Institute for Government’s (IfG) private roundtable on the role of skills in reducing regional inequality. The roundtable brought together politicians in central and local government, employers, education providers and policy experts to discuss the skills and employment challenges and opportunities facing the country, and the role for different levels of government in supporting the development of future skills.

The team also attended several fringe events and discussions, including the National House Building Council (NHBC) and L&Q Homes’ panel debate with Andy Burnham, Mayor of GMCA to discuss how the housing sector can support the levelling up agenda. Separately, the team also attended a Co-Op Group hosted panel featuring Alex Norris MP, the Shadow Minister for Levelling Up, Future of the Union and Elections, which focused on the structural and societal issues that cause many young people to leave their ‘left-behind’ hometowns to progress. This is something that we believe that careers in construction can prevent, whether it is through instilling a pride in local place or offering alternatives to higher level education at the outset.

[edit] Conservative Party Conference

CIOB’s policy and public affairs team also travelled to Birmingham to attend the Conservative Party Annual Conference. The much-anticipated conference had a tense atmosphere in the three days that CIOB attended as government U-turns on budget commitments as well as the then recent leadership contest did more to split the party’s membership than unite. This tension was typified by rumours that both the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng and former Prime Minister, Liz Truss, would not be addressing the members directly amongst calls for further resignations, although this turned out to just be a rumour in the end.

During her address to the audience, the then Prime Minister, did commit to making it easier to build homes in the UK. But outside of this and a further commitment to create new ‘investment zones’ to drive forward levelling up, there was not much to for the built environment, which of course is disappointing to see. Especially given the prevalence of specific policy measures within Labour Leader, Keir Starmer’s speech at Labour Party Conference, most notably the mass programme for domestic insultation.

Throughout the three days that CIOB attended Conservative Party Conference we hosted two fringe events and participated in one roundtable. The first of the events titled 'Increasing skills, decreasing bills: How retrofitting can help both levelling up and the cost of living?' hosted in partnership with the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) and Energy Efficiency Infrastructure Group, centred around the need to implement a far reaching, national retrofitting strategy in order to help solve many of the current issues facing the construction sector. During the session, CIOB’s Senior Vice President, Sandi Rhys Jones OBE highlighted that industry, with support from government, need to fix the “large number of homes we have got” and make them “fit for purpose”, rather than build new homes in isolation. Throughout the session all four participants, including Minister for Local Government and Building Safety, Paul Scully MP highlighted the importance of addressing the energy efficiency of the whole home in order to drive down energy bills to address the current cost of living crisis, create locally based job opportunities to address the current skills shortage and encourage carbon neutrality to meet the UK’s legal binding carbon neutrality targets.

At the same time, CIOB’s Director of Policy, External Affairs & Research, Eddie Tuttle attended a private roundtable hosted by IfG on how skills policy can help reduce regional inequality. The roundtable was a fantastic opportunity for CIOB to continue to push government for tangible solutions to reduce the current skills gap while using the opportunity of levelling up to bridge the unequal regional gaps.

The final event that CIOB hosted was in partnership with RICS, RIBA and RTPI, titled 'Levelling Up: building better?'. The event was also attended by Chair of the Regeneration and Development All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG), Gagan Mohindra MP and the Chair of the Housing and Planning APPG, David Simmonds MP. During the event, each participant raised their own points on the importance of the levelling up agenda and the role of the built environment within it. From a CIOB perspective Sandi Rhys Jones raised the important point that this is not the first time that we have talked about ‘levelling up’. So, the question from the perspective of the built environment is, how is this agenda different and how will government work with the construction sector to ensure that the ambitions of levelling up are realised?

Outside of our own events the team attended several other fringe events including The Great Housing Debate: how do we increase housebuilding and homeownership, hosted by ConservativeHome and NHBC, the Centre for Cities, Welcome to Birmingham Reception, the Natwest SME Taskforce Reception and the Sovereign Housing Association and Walsall Housing Group Housing Fringe: How housing can level up our communities.

Despite an atmosphere of uncertainty and tension amongst attendees and speakers in the wake of a tumultuous first few weeks for the then Prime Minister and her team, Conservative Party Conference 2022 provide an excellent opportunity to catch up with contacts, build new connections and learn more about what our colleagues across the built environment are doing to campaign for change

Article appears as part of the CIOB Policy and Public Affairs Newsletter, October 2022 and on the CIOB news and blog site as 'CIOB at Labour and Conservative Party Conferences 2022' written by David Parry, Public Affairs Officer, October 10, 2022.

--CIOB