Keeping up the momentum on lobbying for our members

In recent weeks there have been more and more in-person (or real) meetings and events. Some of these have presented opportunities for the FMB to speak out on behalf of members, especially if Scottish Government Ministers are present, as was the case at the launch of the Green Home Festival. During the pandemic related lockdowns, the FMB continued its lobbying and advocacy work in Scotland, albeit via Zoom or Teams meetings. So it’s been refreshing to press the flesh once again.

Conversations with Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise: Ivan McKee

I spoke with Ivan McKee, Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise and one of his officials at an event in Glasgow at the end of September. The Minister is keen, diary permitting to speak at the FMB’s Building Conference on 8 November. He is passionate about the changes needed across and within the construction industry to prepare for the new decarbonisation workload. Here, there is some consistency with the FMB’s campaigning work on a national retrofit strategy. We need to involve the skills, capacity and willingness of FMB members as quality local building firms to deliver retrofit works to our homes. Otherwise, decarbonisation and delivering net zero will not be possible.

The Scottish Parliament’s Cross-Party Group (CPG) on Construction reconvenes

On the topic of net zero, this was the focus at the first in-person meeting of the Scottish Parliament’s Cross-Party Group (CPG) on Construction in over 30 months on Tuesday 6 October. I am the current Secretary of the CPG. Officially the CPG is the forum for MSPs, construction industry stakeholders and interested parties to engage directly with each other and discuss opportunities and challenges facing the sector. Ultimately the CPG works to help the development of better policy. The FMB needs to be involved if we are to influence policy positively on behalf of our members.

This meeting focused on the new Fife College Learning Campus which is a case study of the new Scottish Government standard for net zero public sector buildings. A few FMB members in Scotland are becoming familiar with this new voluntary standard which applies to public sector construction projects across new build and refurbishment. The design approach taken to the Fife College project, according to Andrew Stupart from Reiach & Hall Architects has resulted in 3200t of CO2 equivalent not being emitted into the atmosphere.

At the meeting, our Scotland President Alastair Raitt posed a question on whether the hierarchy of regulatory systems: planning, building standards and health and safety, can be looked into as there are conflicts to iron out if existing buildings are to have energy retrofit measures installed. Suffice to say, this is a tough one to answer!

Next on the agenda

Next month, Alastair and I are taking this up with another Scottish Government Minister, Patrick Harvie MSP so it’s great to have Alastar involved in our lobbying work. More on the outcome of this key meeting next month.

Authors

Gordon Nelson

FMB Scotland Hub Director, Federation of Master Builders

Director, Federation of Master Builders Scotland

Gordon has nearly twenty years’ experience of working in membership organisations in Scotland and joined the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) in 2014. Prior to this, he worked at the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) and for Unilever in business development, membership management and business-to-business marketing roles. Amongst his responsibilities in his role as the Director for FMB Scotland are public affairs, media relations, governance and representing member’s interests to Scottish policy makers and stakeholders within the Scottish construction industry. Gordon is the Secretary of the Cross-Party Group on Construction in the Scottish Parliament, and he is a member of the Scottish Building Standards Futures Board. Gordon represents the FMB on Scotland’s Construction Industry Collective Voice: which is comprised of the leading construction trade and professional bodies. In spring 2023 Gordon was appointed as an industry co-chair of the Construction Leaderships Forum’s (CLF) Transformation Board.

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