There has been a lot in the media recently around skills. Specifically, does the housebuilding industry have enough builders for the government to hit its target of building 1.5m new homes?

As the country’s largest housebuilder, the skills crisis is clearly a big issue for us but we are up for the challenge.

Some of the background numbers make grim reading though. For instance, the number of people starting an apprenticeship has fallen by more than a third over the past decade — from 520,600 in 2011 to 337,100 in 2022 — and the declines are sharpest among those aged 16 to 19.