Frank Bertie, Managing Director, welcomes the positive approach of the new Labour Government’s willingness to engage with industry to bring forward plans to meet the Net Zero targets and looks forward to working with Government officials, politicians and policy makers from all parties.
After the general election on July 4th, where the Labour Party secured a landslide victory. In his first speech outside No. 10, it was encouraging to see new Prime Minister Keir Starmer talk about “the opportunity of clean British power, cutting your energy bills for good.”
Additionally, it was promising to see new Chancellor Rachel Reeves outline plans to “get Britain building again,” including new housing targets and lifting the ban on the on-shore wind.
NAPIT welcomes these changes to the planning system, as well as new housing and on-shore wind. These changes will provide our members with increased opportunities and confidence with planning their future work.
The renewed vigour in setting these ambitions can only stimulate confidence in the newbuild housing sector and for retrofit renewable installations in the existing UK housing stock.
The commercial sector equally needs a similar intervention to provide confidence to allow planning, training and increases upskilling the workforce.
The Net Zero policy is essential for tackling the effects of climate change, necessary for the security of energy supplies and for the opportunities for the renewable led skilled workforce to develop and grow.
As promised in Labour’s election manifesto, the new government plans to build 1.5 million homes over the next five years. This will create more work opportunities for our members, whether it is in electrical work, heating, plumbing, the installation of microgeneration technologies, or energy efficiency measures.
Clean, affordable and secure energy can only be a positive for the planet, households, businesses and the economy with the opportunity for highly skilled jobs and careers as we transition to net zero.
We look forward to working with the new Government officials, politicians and policy makers from all parties to develop a plan to train the UK workforce to meet the needs of our low carbon future. It is vital that there are sufficient trained and accredited workers to take advantage of those opportunities as we transition to net zero, which is where organisations such as NAPIT will be an integral part.