The Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for SME Housebuilders has called for urgent action on licensing, planning reform and skills - and to champion small builders.
Sarah Edwards MP has urged the Government to act swiftly on builder licensing, planning delays and the construction skills crisis — warning that without structural reform, the ambition to build 1.5 million new homes will remain out of reach.
The Tamworth MP, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group for SME Housebuilders and holds a degree in spatial design from Central Saint Martins, made the intervention on Series Two of the Federation of Master Builders' Build Up from the Basement podcast.
Addressing the construction skills shortage, Edwards argued that the sector represents one of the most secure career paths available, precisely because it cannot be automated. "AI can't actually put bricks together and build a house," she said. "Unless we're going to start investing huge amounts of money into robots - which isn't going to be a cost-effective way - then we're not going to be there." She called for more agile, site-ready training that gets workers on site faster, pointing to college courses that combine on-site experience with learning as a model the country needs more of. "There is a huge opportunity for people to get themselves a career that isn't going to be redundant. It literally can't be."
On the FMB’s Licence to Build campaign Ms Edwards said the current absence of any framework was leaving homeowners with nowhere to turn when work goes wrong. FMB research has found that £14.3 billion has been lost by victims of rogue builders over the last five years. "There's literally no recourse," she said. "No court system, nothing." She argued that most reputable builders are already meeting the standards a licensing regime would require and that the question is simply how the Government implements it well, she said:
"Most of the good people are already doing it. They're already meeting those kind of standards. So it's just agreeing with the Government — if they are going to bring that in — how do they take the right information from organisations like yours to make sure that when it is rolled out, it's done in the best way possible."
Ms Edwards also highlighted reforms to Companies House under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act as a step toward tackling serial rogue traders who phoenix their companies to evade accountability. She noted that Companies House now has enforcement powers it previously lacked and that AI tools could help flag patterns such as the same director appearing across dozens of dissolved companies.
On the barriers facing small housebuilders, Edwards pointed to planning delays, lack of access to land and prohibitively expensive development finance as the most pressing issues identified through the APPG's surveys of its approximately 300 member businesses. She cited cases where builders had received planning permission only to wait a further two years for highways sign-off so were unable to start work in the meantime. The APPG is currently conducting an access to finance inquiry following evidence that development loans can carry interest rates double or triple the standard bank rate.
Brian Berry, Chief Executive of the Federation of Master Builders, said: "Sarah Edwards speaks with real authority on the challenges facing small housebuilders on our Build Up from the Basement podcast - and we welcome her commitment to championing their voice in Government. The FMB has long called for mandatory licensing to protect consumers and raise standards across the industry; it is encouraging to hear an MP of her standing make this case so clearly. Small builders are essential to delivering the homes this country needs and they deserve a planning system, a skills pipeline and a licensing framework that works for them."
