Good afternoon and welcome to the HBF’s annual lunch. It is just 12 months to the day since we were last here, though I’m sure I am not alone in thinking it feels like a lifetime ago. If a week is a long time in politics, a year seems like an eternity in the housing industry It is without doubt an understatement to say the past 12 months have been the most professionally challenging the majority of us can ever remember. Our industry has lost a great many good and talented people as the crisis in the banking sector unfolded on a scale none of us could then have predicted. It is however I think a great credit to our industry that so many of us are still here and able to attend today. Our industry is if nothing else resilient and tough. As HBF chairman I had to take the difficult decision as to whether to press ahead with today’s event a number of months back. Some felt it was inappropriate in the current climate, and that you, the industry representatives, would not, or indeed could not attend. When I look around the room today I am very glad we decided to go ahead. Clearly, like me, you regard it as vital, probably even more so than ever before, that we do come together at events like this , take the chance to share experiences and catch up with old colleagues . I think perhaps we all understand this point instinctively. It is striking that this year’s event was booked up more quickly than in any previous year. As I said, tough - resilient – and eager to send out the message that we are still here and fighting. And thank you also to the Modern Masonary Alliance for so generously sponsoring this years lunch As has become customary at this event, the housing minister - Margaret Beckett - was due to address us today. It probably sums up our industry’s fortunes this past year that having got everything arranged, sold out every seat and got her agreement, Alistair Darling then announced that the Budget was to take place at the same time as our lunch and as custom dictates, ministers have to be in the House when he delivers his speech, so she had to pull out. Hopefully Mr Darling will feel sufficiently guilty that he will announce a major package of measures to assist our industry, and if yesterday’s news reports are to be believed it would appear that our overtures to provide cash to help unlock mothballed sites may have met with success - though I’m not of course counting any chickens and have learned in any event to study the small print of government announcements before getting too excited. Nonetheless, John Stewart is busy studying the announcements being made in the House and will shortly give us all the headlines from today’s speech. So we may not have the Minister but I am delighted and extremely grateful that in the circumstances Sir Bob Kerslake agreed to change his arrangements and speak to us today. Over the past few months we at HBF have developed a very constructive relationship with Sir Bob and his team at the HCA. And whilst all the solutions in the current climate seemingly have huge issues associated with them, he has already demonstrated a willingness to explore every avenue to find ways of increasing housing output. Thank you very much for joining us today. I have to say it is so refreshing having an agency within Government focused on housing delivery, not policy talking. In these challenging times, I feel the HBF’s role is particularly crucial both in terms of the here and now, and the future. In the past 12 months we have been as busy and active as ever, holding numerous meetings with representatives across government including the Prime Minister, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the Housing Minister, senior officials in the CLG and Treasury, Sir Bob and his team at HCA, the Bank of England and members of its Monetary Policy Committee, as well as key private sector organisations such as the Council of Mortgage Lenders and some of its largest members, the RICS - the list goes on – to ensure everyone understands the issues we face and to lobby hard on your behalf for action to assist the industry during this extraordinary period We have had some success - for example, the money that has been allocated to buy up empty stock and with HomeBuy Direct, which we proposed and then worked closely with HCA to ensure was workable for both our customers and the industry. Whilst only recently launched – if all the money allocated is spent, it will help generate over £3 billion of new home sales for the industry, amounting to some 18,000 homes. However, the current climate dictates that we have to demand more, and we have been working with the HCA for some months now to find ways that their money can be used to unlock mothballed sites and get our industry back to work. For me, the wider economic benefits to the country are quite apparent – our research indicates that for every additional home built about 1.5 direct house building jobs are created and many more indirect ones too . As I said earlier, hopefully these efforts will result in a positive announcement from the Chancellor today which will provide the industry with additional assistance. Despite the current difficult climate, the machine of Government continues on remorselessly, and the range of ongoing discussions about future policy relevant to us remains quite daunting. Zero carbon, the Community Infrastructure Levy, Lifetime Homes, the provision of Affordable Housing and many other regulatory proposals are currently being discussed and debated. And whilst at the moment it would be very easy to focus entirely on the present economic difficulties, I feel it’s vital that we are actively involved in the discussions on this vast number of actual or potential policy issues, using our seat at the table wisely to help to shape the outcome in as business friendly a manner as we can. At the same time we are also working on a range of other matters such as mortgage availability, new home valuations, finding a workable model for the private rented sector and so on, as these will all play a vital part in determining our industry’s future once we emerge from the current downturn. One big item on our agenda currently is what we call the cumulative impact of regulation. Back in 2007 it was clear to us that the collective cost impact all the items on the regulatory wish list would have on land viability was going to be a major challenge, and that was before the fall in house prices and land values we have seen in the past 18 months or so. Working with members (several of whom are here today), we have done a lot of work to model how the costs associated with regulation IMPACT on a variety of actual sites and presented this to Ministers and senior officials across government – from CLG to Treasury to No10. As a result I think there is a widespread realisation of the scale of the challenge we all face to deliver housing numbers in the years ahead. But we have a long way to go to translate this realisation of the problem into policy decisions which must ultimately recognise that new ways will have to be found for funding the delivery of public policy objectives - because no one should be in any doubt that the cash cow that land has become over the past decade or so is no longer available Of course with the political climate as it is, we have also been working hard to influence the Conservatives’ thinking on housing policy and we need to get them to truly understand this point as well. Those of you at our Policy Conference last month will have heard Grant Shapps talking about his vision of communities ‘welcoming developers with open arms’ as he detailed his plans for a bottom up approach that gives local people direct responsibility and control over housing in their communities. Whilst I am delighted by the Conservatives’ commitment to deliver more housing overall, I confess to being totally unclear how their proposed policies will deliver that objective. As ever our job is to use our seat at the table to ensure the Tory high command understands our concerns and to propose potential solutions to them. In fairness, the Conservatives are showing a great willingness to engage and we are striving to take the opportunity to shape their thinking. This will clearly continue. One pleasing aspect of our efforts over the past year was our engagement with the OFT on their market study which largely gave the industry a clean bill of health. One of the key outcomes of that process was that the OFT accepted the industry’s proposals to introduce our own self regulatory Consumer Code which we are on course to have operational a year from now. I think the outstanding success of Robust Details in recently attaining UCASS accreditation, that will provide undoubted benefits for our industry, demonstrated the success of self regulation if you get buy in from all parties and I have no doubt at all that the Consumer Code, when it goes live this time next year, will deliver significant benefits to our customers in terms of the levels of service they can expect from their builder. On the subject of our customers, we are today releasing the results of our 4th Satisfaction Survey for the year ending last September 30th. In today’s climate, when people have seen the value of their homes drop, which could have created customer unease and negativity, it is especially pleasing to note that the answers to the two key questions – would you recommend your home builder to a friend, and were you satisfied with the quality of your home, were 77 and 76% respectively, both slightly up on the previous year’s results. So as you can see, it has been and continues to be an extremely busy time and there are real challenges post-recovery. To ensure our industry is best placed to take advantage of the recovery it is essential that HBF continues to enjoy a seat at the top tables and that we play a leading role in debates about the future. Otherwise other parties, whose interests do not necessarily align with our own, will end up unduly influencing our future. And the best way to influence policy thinking is to speak with a united voice. Together we can achieve far more than anyone on their own. And I have absolutely no doubt that HBF is the only effective voice speaking on behalf of the industry. This was why another talking point at our policy conference was our industry’s business model, with suggestions from some quarters that the current drop in output proves it is a busted flush. Not in my opinion. Life will no doubt be very different in the future – for example how we ensure enough viable land is available is critical – but our industry will evolve and adapt, as it always has, and find ways of delivering the homes that are required once stability returns and more normal levels of lending allow economic recovery to begin. At the end of the day, no matter what the housing tenure or the client, we all know that it is only going to be the private sector house building industry that has the capacity, experience and know how to actually build the homes we need. I personally would like to thank the great many of you who over the past 12 difficult months have provided me with support, guidance and assistance - both HBF members, and those of you here today from outside organisations we work with – I will no doubt be calling on you again in the coming months! I would now like to hand over to Sir Bob Kerslake, for whom I have no doubt the last few months have been equally hectic and challenging. I would like to take this opportunity to again thank him for agreeing to step in and address us today, but also to commend him on the positive start he has made with the HCA. It is remarkable that his organisation is less than five months old but already is making a real impact and will I am sure under Sir Bob’s guidance continue to do so. I look forward to working closely with him and his colleagues during the rest of 2009 and beyond. Thank you for listening and please give a warm welcome to Sir Bob Kerslake.......
