{"id":24886,"date":"2019-12-21T16:05:43","date_gmt":"2019-12-21T16:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ihbconline.co.uk\/newsachive\/?p=24886"},"modified":"2019-12-20T17:04:11","modified_gmt":"2019-12-20T17:04:11","slug":"construction-sector-urges-leaders-to-cut-vat-to-unleash-green-housing-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=24886","title":{"rendered":"Construction sector urges leaders to cut VAT to unleash green housing revolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"A coalition of business groups and organisations from across the property and construction sectors \u2013 including the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) and the British Property Federation (BPF) – have joined forces to urge the next UK government to cut VAT on maintenance and improvement works to people\u2019s homes, as they note that VAT cut on home improvements could generate \u00a315bn in new taxes, create 95,000 jobs and unlock \u00a31bn green revolution.<\/h3>\n

image: FMB website<\/em><\/h6>\n

<\/p>\n

FMB writes:<\/p>\n

A coalition of business groups and organisations from across the property and construction sectors have joined forces to urge the next UK government to cut VAT on maintenance and improvement works to people\u2019s homes.<\/p>\n

Reducing VAT from 20% to 5% on home improvement works would unleash investment in housing, stimulate the economy and enable the UK\u2019s transition to net zero carbon, groups including the Federation of Master Builders( FMB) and the British Property Federation said today.<\/p>\n

The coalition has today written to each of the leaders of Westminster\u2019s four largest parties, asking them to speak for the Cut the VAT campaign during the remainder of the General Election campaign and to meet with the coalition early in the next Parliament.<\/p>\n

This is vital, the coalition of built environment groups said, in order to green the nation\u2019s homes, with domestic buildings responsible for around 20% of the UK\u2019s carbon emissions.<\/p>\n

In addition to improving the standards of older homes, and those in rural areas, this measure would also help unleash investment in new housing. Build-to-rent (BTR) is a relatively new asset class in the UK that provides high quality, purpose-built and professionally managed homes.<\/p>\n

The BTR sector has grown from fewer than 30,000 homes to 148,000 homes in the last five years \u2013 and delivered a quarter of London\u2019s housing output last year. By reducing the irrecoverable VAT associated with maintenance and management of BTR, the sector can deliver even more, the letter said.<\/p>\n

Melanie Leech, Chief Executive of the British Property Federation, said: \u2018Reducing the rate of VAT on all repairs, maintenance and management of residential property would support the greening and improvement of our housing stock, and help the build to rent sector deliver more homes. We therefore urge the next Government to support the Cut the VAT campaign.\u2019<\/p>\n

Brian Berry, Chief Executive of the Federation of Master Builders, said: \u2018An amazing 20 million floors, 8 million lofts and 5 million cavity walls all in need of insulation across the UK, according to the Government\u2019s own figures. The four main parties must go further in their policy pledges to promote and incentivise energy efficiency works. Given that homeowners tend to complete these tasks as a consequence of larger home improvement works the rate of VAT on repair and maintenance work needs to be reduced from the current 20% to 5%.\u2019<\/p>\n

Anna Scothern, Chief Executive of the National Home Improvements Council, said: \u2018The NHIC are proud to support this campaign and have long since championed initiatives which support householders to make safe, informed decisions around home improvements. Providing a reduction in VAT comparable to that in new build, would go a long way toward putting a stop to the grey economy as well as ensuring householders are protected when using reputable tradespeople\u2019.<\/p>\n

Patrice Cairns, Northern Ireland Policy Manager, Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, said: \u2018To fully decarbonise the built environment both the operational carbon and embodied carbon in buildings must be tackled, retrofitting provides an opportunity to achieve significant embodied carbon savings through re-use rather than re-build\u2019.<\/p>\n

Read more….<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A coalition of business groups and organisations from across the property and construction sectors \u2013 including the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) and the British Property Federation (BPF) – have joined forces to urge the next UK government to cut … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sector-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24888,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24886\/revisions\/24888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}