The very simple reason why Hammond’s housebuilding target is pie in the sky

The Chancellor sounded purposeful when he declared that he’ll do ‘whatever it takes’ to boost the rate of housebuilding — including pushing developers and councils to use up land banks and act on existing planning permissions — with a view to hitting a politically symbolic target of 300,000 units per year. But I wonder whether the post-Budget small print will reveal any sort of plan to overcome the most basic obstacle to achieving this objective, which is a critical shortage of bricks?

When housebuilding went into sharp decline after the 2008 crisis, many British brick factories closed down. To build even half of Philip Hammond’s target, the industry needs more than 2.5 billion bricks per year; but domestic manufacturers, operating at half the production levels of a few years ago, can no longer supply them. Meanwhile imports are slow and, thanks to the weak pound, increasingly expensive — and timber–based or prefab alternatives are subject to fierce post-Grenfell fire-safety scrutiny as well as being largely unfamiliar in a sector weaned on century-old building methods. Oh yes, and our construction industry is at risk of losing up to 175,000 EU workers.

It may console the embattled Hammond that no one expects him to be in post long enough to measure performance against this and other promises; with his entrepreneurial background, perhaps he might open a brickworks for his next career.

Put a sock in it, mate

I’m intrigued by Tim Martin, founder of the J.D. Wetherspoon pub chain, who is the BBC’s pro-Brexit businessman of choice in a tight race with vacuum cleaner king Sir James Dyson. What makes Martin a media favourite is his matey blokeishness, enhanced by a mullet hairstyle and a Rambling Syd Rumpo accent which is somehow the product of a middle-class upbringing in New Zealand and Belfast.