Binley warns of civil service involvement in delivering Green Deal

A man who considers himself "a businessman first", Brian Binley MP, was speaking at a National Federation of Builders fringe event at the Conservative conference, looking at the contribution of construction to the UK economy, particularly small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).

Binley pushed for the development of the Green Deal to be lead by the private sector, because if lead by the civil service it will be "much less successful" than it needs to be.

An energy efficiency scheme, the Green Deal will allow home owners to make home improvements, increasing the energy efficiency of their homes with loans whose repayments are offset by bill savings.

From the point of view of the SME, Julia Evans, chief executive of the National Federation of Builders, said the key problem with the Green Deal was around borrowing money.

Evans maintained that the prospect of small businesses starting to almost act as a money lender is something most are not in a position to do.

Brian Berry, a member of the audience and director of external affairs at the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) called for a Green Deal provider for SMEs. What he termed a "special delivery vehicle" which would allow small business to access money to facilitate the Green Deal.

MP for Waveney, Peter Adlous, said it was important to ensure SMEs are not muscled out of the market on the Green Deal by larger providers such as the likes of Tesco and B&Q.

He also called for a major public facing campaign to be undertaken to ensure the consumer is aware of the Green Deal, as he imagined at present if you were to ask somebody in your local pub what the Green Deal is, they would "not have clue what you were talking about".

Welcoming the government's newly published Construction Strategy, Evans said she was "pleased" to see an attempt by government to be more coherent in how it purchases.

Yet she maintained the need for local authorities to really pay attention to "intelligent procurement," particularly around dealing with SMEs.

Often overlooked by local government in the procurement process, Binley called the treatment of SMEs by local government "appalling".

In agreement with Binley, Aldous cited the example of some schools being built in his constituency, where the local authority had chosen not to award any of the contracts to builders from the local area.

He urged the government to "look after SMEs".