This week the National Federation of Roofing Contractors (NFRC) announced that the three mains points of its manifesto for the roofing industry as follows:
- Cross party support for an accredited roofing sector, enabling through assessment, those employees with existing skills to be officially recognised, to provide a foundation for upskilling existing workers and to launch a career path for new entrants and apprenticeships.
- The new Government’s commitment to using only accredited roofing professionals on all public funded projects and to encourage uptake across the built environment.
- A bill to end the antiquated and unfair practices associated with cash retentions in the industry.
James Talman, CEO of the NFRC, commented: “News of the Prime Minister’s decision to call a General Election caught a lot of people by surprise. Clearly a major consideration in Theresa May’s thoughts is to get a clear mandate from the country in respect of the Brexit negotiations which start shortly. Whether this happens or not will obviously dictate our negotiating stance with the EU.
“Reading the construction press, common requests to the future Government include a flexible approach to immigration whilst the industry recruits and trains a substantially larger domestic workforce, commitments to energy efficiency investment on old building stock and fully funding SME apprenticeships. We support the initiatives of umbrella organisations such as the Construction Products Association with their three key messages, centred on overall recognition for the sector, supporting market growth and reducing risk.”
The NFRC says it will be producing a more detailed manifesto over the next few weeks to enable members to lobby their parliamentary candidates.
