£1M construction skills fund for London

António Horta-Osório, Chief Executive of Lloyds Banking Group, has announced the launch of a new construction skills fund, with an initial budget of £1M.

The Lloyds Banking Group is responding to calls for more and better construction skills training if the UK is to build the extra homes required, particularly with the Housing Minister’s aim for another one million homes to be constructed by 2020.

Speaking alongside Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, Mr Horta-Osório has outlined Lloyd’s plan to invest £1M over four years, creating a fund which other companies will be invited to contribute to.

He said: “This new Lloyds Banking Group’s fund will help provide the improved training that housebuilders tell us their workforce needs. We are passionately committed to developing Londoners’ skills and building more homes for the capital, and this fund will contribute towards both.”

London Mayor Boris Johnson continued: “With some of the biggest infrastructure projects in the world taking place in the capital, and thousands of new homes being built, helping young people into construction apprenticeships has never been more important. We need to do everything in our power to help more people access construction opportunities and I am working hard with Government to make sure that London’s skills system works better and harder for the capital.”

The Group has recently committed to other skills programmes, creating some 5,000 new Lloyds Banking Group apprenticeships by 2020, investing £50m in smaller house-builders’ projects via its Housing Growth Fund by 2017, and providing £30bn of support to UK infrastructure projects in the Government’s National Infrastructure Plan by 2017.

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