Brexit Swings a Sledgehammer at Britain's Housing Market

(Bloomberg Gadfly) -- Philip Hammond promised just last week to "fix Britain's broken housing market." One slight problem is that Brexit threatens to take a sledgehammer to the plan hatched by the U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Now, it's unfair to pin the blame for the imminent departure from the EU on Hammond. He's probably the keenest Europhile in Theresa May's fractious Conservative cabinet. But there were already quite a few doubts swirling around his aim to build 300,000 homes a year by the middle of the next decade. 

Then, on Wednesday, we got a cri de coeur from the British builder in the shape of a Construction Industry Brexit Manifesto

And you can see why the hard-hat crowd are worried:

Almost one in 10 of the builders working in Britain comes from the EU. The industry reckons the proportion is much higher in London. And remember, it's struggling already to find workers. In the third quarter, 62 percent of construction and infrastructure industry respondents to a Royal Institution of Surveyors survey said skills shortages were impeding growth.

Of course, Hammond is probably the builder's best mate when it comes to arguing their cause with the Brexiteers. And it's true too that construction firms should do more to train up Brits to do many of these jobs, as they're promising to do. But not for the first time, you do wonder how a government can deliver a genuinely big cut to immigration without it being a serious act of economic self-harm.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Elaine He is Bloomberg Gadfly's data visualization columnist in Europe, focusing on business and markets coverage. Before joining Bloomberg, she was a graphics editor at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

To contact the author of this story: Elaine He in London at ehe36@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Boxell at jboxell@bloomberg.net.

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