Forget Labour's 1.5m New Homes Target

During the election campaign last year, one of Labour’s key pledges was to build 1.5m new homes in five years in an effort to alleviate the UK’s chronic housing shortage. Of course, this was met with applause by Labour voters, but those with any form of common sense new that this was a promise that could never be delivered.

Housing matters to the fenestration sector. More new homes mean more new windows and doors. More homes mean people move more often and when people do that they invest in their homes. Again, good for our sector.

But for the sake of our own sanity, we need to drop the idea that the Government are going to be able to reach this target. The reality is that they are going to be way off the mark.

How to build

Labour hammered home the 1.5m target time after time. Yet, I do not recall any details being laid out by Labour as to how they were going to resolve the massive skills crisis that plagues the entire construction sector. A problem we know too well in our own sector.

I was lucky enough to have my local MP knock at my door, Simon Lightwood, during the campaign period. He asked if I had a few minutes for some questions. I said, “yes, I do”. Poor lad probably didn’t expect to be bombarded by questions about the detail on how they are going to resolve the skills gap. He accepted that those homes were not going to get built unless the construction force was rapidly increased, but he was unable to offer me any details on it, other than to say that level of detail was worked out by civil servants and wouldn’t be included in a manifesto. In short, they have no plan.

Depending on which report you read, the construction sector is short of skilled workers anywhere between 300,000 and 1.3 million. My guess is that we are more realistically somewhere in the middle of those figures. Which if correct, still represents a chasm in the workforce.

Apprenticeship schemes of all types for the last decade or so have not produced anywhere near the numbers our sector, as well as wider construction, require. Protrade, the tools and fixings specialists, have produced a new report which shows the state of apprenticeships in construction. These are some of the major points from that report:

2,420 new female apprentices joined the sector in 2023/2024 – an increase of 7% from 2022/2023
1.4% decline in new construction apprentices joining the industry in 2023/24, with 24,230 individuals enrolling in new courses, down from 24,530 the previous year
The North West of England (4,040) has the highest number of new apprenticeship enrolments in 2023/24.
London (1,930) ranks last for construction apprenticeship enrolments in 2023/24.
Apprentices from ethnic backgrounds increased by 1% compared with 2022/23, with 1,900 new learners from diverse communities, representing a 57% increase since 2018/19.

The new uptake figures don’t look great either:

You can read the full report here: https://www.protrade.co.uk/blog/report-state-of-construction-apprenticeships-in-2025/

Protrade estimates construction is short of workers by around 250,000. The apprenticeship dropout rate sits at about 40%, so the figures above won’t even be the numbers that make their way into the sector when they complete their courses.

Labour says they are going to tinker with the planning system in order to push through more work. So let’s assume they are successful in that. What will that create? More work and more demand in a sector that is already way short of the number of people it needs. Surely this is only going to create more pressure on the existing workforce? It is also worth bearing in mind that as many reach the age of 50, they retire or leave the sector. There are very few coming through to replace an entire generation that is set to retire in the next 5-10 years.

Some better than nothing

From a fenestration sector’s perspective, what can we expect to actually happen over the next five years? As I have already said, we have to forget the 1.5m new homes, it’s simply not going to happen. There are not the resources or people required to make that happen.

But I do think we are likely to see some uplift in house-building. Labour will be at pains to deliver some sort of tangible increase over their five years in power. They have to get to the next election being able to say that they increased the number of homes built. I’m not sure how they are going to spin failing to hit 1.5m homes but that is for another day.

As a result, I think the fenestration sector could see some small benefits over the next four and half years. If the Government can increase the number of news homes coming to market, new-build suppliers of windows and doors will see an increase in business. More homes = more windows and doors. Not only that, more new homes will allow more people to move. When people move they tend to spend on home improvements which is good for the retro-fit market as well.

Some increase is better than no increase, and in a market where we are all scrapping around for growth, any new business should be welcomed. I think where many will feel frustration and anger is that the new Government came in with a promise of a staggering number of new homes, which would have required levels of building not seen since the 1950s, just for it to fall away like many other promises from political parties. It was a carrot dangled on a string that was never there in the first place.

I did read not too long ago a number of press releases from areas of the market claiming that we needed to be ready for a new surge in business, with some comparing it to the post-lockdown boom. Wishful thinking I’m afraid.