Mr. Kevin James:

I completely agree with the Deputy's point regarding labour and long-term security. We need to adopt an approach that makes the industry attractive and sustainable to keep people and motivate them to join the industry for the longer term. The industry is under pressure right now in trying to develop. We have an acute housing crisis which has been compounded by the arrival of refugees. The seams are splitting with regard to accommodation requirements. It is about providing new and additional accommodation. There are constraints in the workforce on which we depend to deliver buildings in the residential market and other sectors of the industry. The committee must bear in mind that we also have the issue of mica. The SCSI spent three months working with the Government on how to support it with regard to how mica was going to unfold. That will put a burden on the workforce when that traction begins to kick in. There is also the retrofitting programme, which is running in parallel to that. There are a lot of competing forces that will draw across the industry, outside of residential buildings.

We have to look at apprentices. The apprentices coming into the industry must serve the entire industry across all sectors, not just residential. There has to be some sort of process to understand the numbers of apprentices coming in. How long does it take to train an apprentice? Is it three or four years or can we do it faster? Can we fast-track apprentices and can we make it more attractive? That is the future of our industry. We need to bring people in and motivate them to join contracting companies. We do not have a larger workforce compared to 2007 or 2008. We are depending on the contractors who are inside the tent at the moment and they are in a fragile state. They are looking at their order books and the economy and wondering whether the subcontractors are going to get paid. They are looking to the future and the economic outlook.

In some respects, we have to be very mindful of attracting contractors to price projects. Contractors want to deliver projects but if they are at a disadvantage because they cannot offer fixed-price contracts, we have to go back into public procurement. We have to understand the risk profile in public procurement. The co-operation inflation agreement is a great move but we also have to think about what are we doing with regard to being flexible. The Deputy mentioned flexibility in contracts to make them more attractive. Should we look at new engineering contracts, fitting contracts and shared mechanisms where there is a shared risk? We must allow the contractors and the industry to come together and find solutions because we are value engineering schemes at the moment and we are still proving they are not viable.

Bulk purchasing is a great initiative. I am not quite sure what the Government stepping into that arena would look like. Large-scale developers can bulk-buy. In public procurement, when we agree a contract with a contractor, we do not tell the contractor how and when he can place that order. It might be a two-year construction project so he might not want to buy the windows on day one and lock in that fee. He may decide to look at that. If he decides to buy the window package in a year's time and realises it is 20% more, is that value for money? Who carries that risk? We are trying to understand the contractual terms and negotiations when we have the contractors at the outset.

Regarding sustainable finance, green finance and how we can encourage lower rates of interest, we are on the way and are looking at motivating other sustainable initiatives. The environmental, social, and governance, ESG, area is just looking at green finance and motivating contractors to understand it. That comes down to educating the industry and promoting the fact that we can get cheaper finance if we instil this into future designs and into the contracting industry. It will also help train the industry over the next nine to 12 months.