Eddie Hughes is a former British housing minister with extensive experience in the housing sector. Known for his work in shaping policies related to social housing and building regulations, Hughes played a key role in advancing the UK’s commitment to net zero through initiatives like the Future Home Standard.
He has been a strong advocate for improving housing quality, introducing the New Homes Ombudsman to address issues of poor-quality new builds. Eddie has recently been appointed by the NFB in an advisory capacity to support members and discuss their individual issues.
In this interview, Hughes sits down with Housebuild to discuss the new housing targets, his time as Housing Minister as well as the challenges the Government faces across the sector.
Interviewer: It’s quite a broad subject, but the 1.5 million homes target from Labour – do you think it’s realistic? And if not, what needs to change to make that number achievable?
Eddie: It’s an ambition I completely endorse and support – I say good luck to them. But some constituencies, some boroughs, are going to need to build twenty times their previous average output.
In order to hit those targets, it’s not enough to talk conceptually or globally about building 1.5 million homes across the country.
The real question is: what does that mean for your council, or your backyard? That’s where it becomes challenging.
But I say to them, everything they’re doing – I love the idea. I love the idea that we might be changing planning law to get to a position where councils feel they can say yes rather than no.
We joked at the start of this interview about using AI to transcribe our discussion, but planning applications also require a huge amount of data, information, and paperwork. Imagine putting all of that into an AI system.
We can envision a world where planning is a smoother, more positive experience.
But if you’re an SME builder, the risk is too great. You think, I simply can’t afford the time and investment if it might still end in rejection.
There are some things on the horizon that I think will really help. But there are also serious challenges.
Even if you magically got planning permission for every site in 24 hours, the next question is: who’s going to build all these homes?
We still need more electricians, more plumbers. As a Conservative government, we tried to address this by reforming academic qualifications, introducing T-levels.
Interviewer: A lot of people have said they don’t think the target is realistically reachable, but they’ve also said that aiming that high means housebuilding is likely to ramp up regardless. So, if we end the Parliament building more homes than we’ve done in years, it’s almost like failing upwards in a way. Would you agree?
Eddie: I mean, yes. Well, it’s not really failing because you’re still producing more homes.
But the difference that we need to configure is that between transformational and incremental change. If you set out, whatever the task – whether it’s housebuilding or something else – if you set out with the ambition of being a little bit better than you were previously, then you might get a little bit better or you might not achieve that.
I mentioned at the start of this interview, I ran 10K this morning because I’m an enthusiastic runner. I did the London Marathon last year.
In order to prepare for the marathon, I had to exercise regularly, sleep better, change my diet, stopped drinking – loads of different things – because it’s a significant challenge.
That doesn’t mean just one thing. It means it (the Government) needs to improve planning. It needs to improve education. It needs to improve access to finance.
So, I’ll give you another example. I was the minister that introduced what is charmingly called the Part L uplift in the Building Regulations – so a staging post towards the Future Home Standard.
Interviewer: You mentioned your time as Housing Minister when you were in Parliament. I’ve got a question reflecting on that period. What were some of the highlights or changes you made that you feel had the most impact?
Eddie: Well, I would go back to that point about changing the Building Regulations. But there is an interesting point here with regard to the seriousness that people are treating net zero with at the moment compared to other challenges the Government has got.
So, for example, when we had COP26 in Glasgow – the world came to Glasgow to talk about net zero, and our commitment to that was ambitious. It was top of the news agenda in the run-up to it, and subsequently.
But what happened a short time after that? Russia invaded Ukraine. Utility prices went absolutely through the roof, and all of a sudden the cost of living became much more of a significant issue to people than net zero. They were just wanting to make sure they could pay for their heating, let alone whether it came from solar panels or a heat pump, or from a boiler.
And I think there’s been a bit of a recalibration because utility prices have remained high, and some focus has gone off net zero.
If we build more efficient homes, then they’re going to need less energy to heat them. So being part of that movement, in terms of changing the direction of housebuilding to make sure that we are more energy efficient, we do emit less carbon in the future, felt like a pretty significant moment.
Interviewer: I’ve recently been doing some research into biodiversity net gain, and I wrote about a study that found developers weren’t always following through on their proposals.
Wildlife features meant to be reinstated often weren’t. Do you think the biodiversity net gain system has worked – and does it need amending to strengthen enforcement?
Eddie: Well, that’s an interesting question. Because having moved from one side of the table to the other, I have some reservations, to say the least.
So, for example, do I think that – if for the sake of argument – you imagine the perfect greenfield site that has been granted permission for a housing development, and the trees, hedges, bushes are all gone now… The opportunity for homes for wildlife, carbon absorption, public realm enjoyment– are all gone. This is now replaced with much-needed housing, and possibly beautiful housing. But still, you need to find some way to compensate for those lost things.
So the biodiversity… it’s a balancing act, isn’t it? It’s a balancing act.
The biodiversity net gain legislation had significant merit, but I guess for me particularly, I’m a bit taken aback by the range of interpretation. Now, one of the things is – when you introduce legislation – you try to second guess how it will be interpreted, how people might try to get around it and avoid it, and so on. And then you try to cover for that. But you simply can’t do everything. You have to allow some latitude of interpretation.
Interviewer: Could you give me a snapshot of what the housebuilding sector looked like during your time as Housing Minister, and how those challenges compare to the picture today?
Eddie: Well, sadly, I think the challenges are broadly similar. The difficulty is attracting young people into the sector to do all the jobs – not just laying bricks and wiring cables, but also project management, architecture, and more.
We need to find a way to re-glamorise or increase the appeal of the industry and it’s beholden on all of us to do that. Everyone reading this article is involved in housebuilding, and they should be evangelising to young people to draw them into the sector. That’s something we can all do to supercharge construction.
We need good homegrown talent – not just trades and construction professionals, but also entrepreneurs. People who want to start up construction companies and see them grow.
Planning challenges remain a problem. Sadly, some of these issues are so big that they need more than a single political cycle to fix. That’s one of the problems with politics.
People reading Housebuild will be thinking about five or ten-year horizons – land assembly, planning, finance. Government needs to take a longer-term view. We need cross-party consensus on key issues.
We need to rationalise – what are the three or four things that, if developed and funded over the next five years, would make a real difference?
That’s why I’m excited to be working with the NFB and helping them hone their message.
Interviewer: You mentioned those three or four key asks – what would you say they are?
Eddie: Let me give you an example. We often say there’s enough money in the system to fix problems, but it’s in the wrong places. Take the apprenticeship levy. A great idea in principle – encouraging businesses to train staff and increase the number of skilled professionals.
But some of the money is stuck in places where it can’t be used effectively. It can fund training for things a business doesn’t need, but not the thing it actually does need. Government needs to be more agile. Good intentions don’t always match real-world outcomes.
The people paying into the system – the industry – know what’s needed. Government must listen. But again, we need a united voice. If ten professional bodies suggest ten different tweaks to the levy, nothing changes. We need to sit down and agree on one or two changes that will really improve the benefit, and push those together.
Interviewer: Is there anything that’s popped into your head during the course of the interview? Any talking points that you would like to discuss?
Eddie: Just this, On attracting young people into the sector. I grew up in an Irish community in Birmingham. Pretty much every man I knew worked in construction. I sat in the cab of a JCB when I was 11 years old, and I just knew – that’s what I wanted to do.
I went to university and studied civil engineering. My first job was setting out foundations, roads, drainage on a social housing site. I’ve been involved in housing – management, maintenance, construction – my whole life.
So the question is: how do we create that same spark for young people today? That moment that says, ‘This is a sector I want to be part of.’ Going from building with Lego to building with bricks and steel. That’s what we need to inspire.
