Jeremy Hunt presented the Spring Budget to Parliament on 15 March, addressing a number of issues affecting the electrical trade… some more satisfactorily than others.
To tackle the rising early retirement rates in the UK, the Chancellor announced that apprenticeships will be introduced in the skills trades for the over-50s. Whilst this does have the potential to help address the skills shortage, the measures arguably don’t go far enough with training programmes to incentivise the younger generations.
A key issue not addressed in the budget is the need for training programmes for retrofit qualifications. Schemes such as the Retrofit London Housing Action Plan, which aims to convert 3.7 million homes in London to EPC B or equivalent by 2030, are currently a pipe dream considering the massive skills shortage in the trades. The government pledged £6bn for green building upgrades in the Autumn Statement in a bid to tackle the energy crisis, but to make them a reality, significantly more money needs to be spent on training the workforce.
Elsewhere in the issue, I spoke to Nico van de Merwe, the new CEO of Signify about his new role (30) and National Ventilation’s Christian Rehn shared his thoughts on the importance of making sustainable choices along the supply chain (16).
Plus, as always, our usual news, views, products and installations from market-leading businesses across the sector.
Bryony Andrews , Editor
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