Response to interpellation 2024/25:258 on measures to strengthen housing construction and the construction industry
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
KD considers that the government is working to address structural obstacles and that the construction sector is showing signs of recovery 1. KD argues that the investment support was an expensive reform without effect 2, but that the government is now preparing measures for rental purchases and student housing 2. KD emphasizes that fighting inflation and a functioning housing market is the way forward 3 and that the government allocates funds for reinforced control. S considers that the government has ignored the construction industry, abolished the investment support, and caused a construction crisis 4. S proposes construction stimulus, state credits, and a green root deduction 5 6 7. S also wants requirements for collective agreements, professionally trained staff, and reintroduced labor market testing 8.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Statsrådet Andreas Carlson (KD)
Madam Speaker! Leif Nysmed has asked me if I intend to take any measures to strengthen housing construction and the construction industry and secure the supply of skills also in the Stockholm region, and if not, why.
I want to emphasize initially that the conditions for housing construction and the construction industry are a pressing issue for the government. It is also the supply of skills. All of Sweden must function, and the conditions for living, residing, and working in the entire country shall be strengthened.
External factors such as high inflation and increased interest rates have, in recent years, severely worsened the conditions for housing construction. The Government has focused its work on addressing the structural obstacles that characterize the construction and housing market so that Sweden will be better equipped and to enable increased construction of housing.
It is pleasing that the construction sector is now showing some signs of recovery. Construction costs, for example, are no longer rising at the same rapid pace, and construction costs have decreased by nearly 6 percent for multi-family houses during the last twelve-month period.
When times look brighter, the need for competence also increases. Access to personnel with the right competence is important for Sweden's competitiveness. The possibility for transition and education therefore needs to be strengthened. For that reason, the government prioritizes funds for more places within both the university colleges and the vocational adult education.
In order to broaden the range of vocational education at the upper secondary level that meets the needs of the labor market, the Swedish National Agency for Higher Vocational Education has also been tasked with carrying out a pilot project with a national vocational education for adults at the upper secondary level according to the higher vocational education model. One of the areas that has been relevant for the first application round for the new vocational education is construction and civil engineering.
Cumbersome regulations are, however, still a factor that hinders housing construction. The Government is taking a number of measures to remedy the problem. For example, the Government Offices are now preparing Boverket's report on significant relaxations in the building requirements for student housing, as well as a referral to the Council of Legislation based on the Building Permit Investigation's proposals. The Government has also tasked Boverket with proposing relaxations in the building requirements in the Planning and Building Act during renovation and reconstruction, as well as implementing a competence initiative regarding the application of the Planning and Building Act aimed at the municipalities.
Leif Nysmed (S)
Madam Speaker! I thank you for the answer.
The Prime Minister spoke earlier about the light brightening on the horizon. That is not something many within the construction sector agree with. Just yesterday I read that Byggfakta writes that "the recovery for residential construction appears to have been interrupted at already low levels."
Madam Speaker! The Minister for Housing says that it is pleasing that the construction sector is now showing signs of recovery. I believe that the department has the same basis as I do and that they have also read Byggfakta's report. I therefore find it difficult to see what is pleasing in that only about 10 percent of the construction jobs in Stockholm County received an apprenticeship position after the end of high school this spring.
Where is the joy in that a large construction company this spring laid off 50 construction workers and another large construction company laid off 120 construction workers during the year here in the Stockholm region because housing construction has more or less come to a standstill?
These people have not been saved by the government's policy. Instead, they are now to be punished with reduced benefits after 100 days, and they do not enjoy any of the government's tax cuts, as the unemployed do not get to share in them. In the end, it becomes a double economic punishment.
What then are the government's solutions to the housing crisis, the construction unemployment, and the construction crisis? The first thing the government did was to stop 20,000 rental apartments with lower rents by abruptly abolishing the successful investment support. One might then think that the government might have something else to propose. But for two years, the minister has only spoken about a head start with structural reforms and regulatory simplifications – something we have not seen any smoke of on the Riksdag's table during this mandate period.
The investigations that are expected to come during next year, hopefully, will not have any major effect during this mandate period. We therefore have a government that has completely ignored the construction industry and housing construction for an entire mandate period.
Boverket presented the housing need until 2033 this morning. It is a downward revision from 63,000 housing units to approximately 52,000 housing units per year, but at the same time, Boverket's construction forecasts show significantly lower construction of housing than the need - around 30,000 housing units per year. Barely half! These are no pleasing figures, one could say.
The SD-led government has no crisis insight. Some years ago, a report was written called Seven Difficult Years. The government should have read it. Inflation has eaten up ten years of real wage development. That means it will take many years before purchasing power returns. When no measures are taken to get the wheels moving within the housing sector again, the recession we are already in will deepen. Just as the government notes, it will continue even longer than previously estimated – something that the government itself is responsible for.
Stockholms län is a growth engine in Sweden. Construction, and particularly residential construction, is an important key to getting growth started again. Several S-led municipalities here, such as Stockholm city, Solna and my home municipality Huddinge, are doing everything to get construction started. But the economic conditions are difficult. That which is built must also be able to be demanded by those who are to buy or rent the home.
Madam Speaker! The Minister for Housing did not answer my question as to why he does not intend to take measures to strengthen housing construction and the construction industry and secure the supply of skills also in the Stockholm region. What are all the construction workers I previously mentioned who have become unemployed supposed to do during the coming years when housing construction will still be at catastrophically low levels? What does the Minister for Housing say to the 90 percent of construction apprentices in the Stockholm region who do not get to complete their education? What are they supposed to do while waiting for a new, proactive S-government to take over?
Markus Kallifatides (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for the previous answer to Leif Nysmeds urgent interpellation!
I am from the city of Stockholm. Leif Nysmed is from Stockholm County. Now, Social Democrats from the entire Stockholm region are present.
I take the liberty of updating the Council of State with some up-to-date figures from Boverket which Leif Nysmed also referred to, Madam Speaker, but broken down specifically for the Stockholm region.
The construction need in our region for the current ten-year period is now estimated at 23,700 apartments. Right now, according to the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce's statistics for the last twelve months, 8,500 apartments are being started. I get that to 36 percent of the estimated need - less than half. We are down to 2009 levels, Madam Speaker, in the Stockholm region. At that time, we had a global financial crisis.
We Social Democrats are very well aware that housing supply issues look very different across the country. This interpellation, however, focuses on the Stockholm region. Here, the housing issue is often a concern in terms of a shortage of housing, insufficient construction, and all too high thresholds for entering the housing market.
We Social Democrats offer a whole that serves as an alternative to the Tidö majority's and the government's policy. We want to invest in welfare. We want to support the families who have it hardest economically. We want to fight unemployment with active labor market policy. We want to pressure banks and food giants through better competition and better information. And the first economic-political point in our budget motion for this year, Madam Speaker, is that we demand and propose immediate measures to get housing construction started in the serious construction crisis we find ourselves in. We have hardly seen anything more serious since the 90s.
We also propose construction stimulus as a replacement for the prematurely phased-out investment support that Leif Nysmed mentioned, with student housing and industrial establishment sites in focus. We propose favorable government credits. We propose that the investigation on start-up loans for first-time buyers be put into action. We propose half a billion for energy efficiency in multi-family housing, a green rot deduction with a 50 percent subsidy rate to keep construction-skilled workers in jobs, and more.
My reading of the situation is that the answer to Leif Nysmeds actually posed question, whether the government is prepared to take any measures to get housing construction started also in the Stockholm region, is hanging in the air. I therefore also pose the question, especially the last part: Why this reluctance to take emergency measures for an emergency situation also in our region?
Statsrådet Andreas Carlson (KD)
Madam Speaker! It cannot be denied that there is a great commitment to the issue among the members who represent different parts of the Stockholm area. I thank them for that. Then there are some questions that we perhaps need to go through a little bit.
The first, which Leif Nysmed also raises in the interpellation, concerns something that we have discussed quite many times here, Madam Speaker, namely the investment support. Nysmed describes it as successful, while at the same time we know that approximately 10 billion kronor have gone to apartments that would have been built anyway, according to a report that the Tenants' Association has prepared. It was 10 billion that could have been used for school, healthcare, and elderly care, which I know are usually popular and important areas for Social Democrats to prioritize as well.
These types of measures were also implemented during the previous government, when there was an economic boom and a low-interest-rate environment. Nevertheless, the targets were not reached in any single year according to the needs identified by Boverket.
I would like to see some form of humility and self-reflection regarding the measures that should have been put in place earlier so that we would be better equipped for the tough situation that hit and continues to hit very hard when we faced both a recession and very high inflation at the same time.
That is where the question of structural barriers comes in, Madam Speaker. These hit hard both in a boom and in a recession, but they are felt extra much in this very concerning situation. What I said is pleasing is the signs of recovery that exist, but it is truly still a tough situation. That is why it is urgent to continue conducting an economic policy that takes responsibility but also creates conditions to accelerate the recovery.
Questions were asked for concrete proposals. I raised some in my answer, Madam Speaker. Markus Kallifatides raised the thresholds to the housing market, and they naturally need to be lowered. Here are proposals that we are now processing and which we received as recently as two weeks ago. One concerns rent-to-buy, something that works very well in, for example, Norway. The person who wants to enter the housing market can buy half of the apartment and then successively pay off the other half through rent. It lowers the capital requirement and thus the thresholds for entry.
There are also other proposals being prepared, regarding mortgage caps and amortization requirements. We are implementing measures for student housing. If these come, we will return to them. There, I hope, of course, for as broad support as possible in the Riksdag so that more people will be able to get a foot in the housing market in the Stockholm area and other areas in our country.
So, a lot is going on. It is also important to highlight – even if it may not primarily concern the Stockholm area – the measures we have presented regarding housing development in the north. Even though we will return to these. There are now funds in the budget that will be significantly more accurate than the very expensive reforms, for example the investment support, which did not lead to the intended effect.
It is good that we have this discussion again, but I would also wish for a somewhat more self-critical and humble tone from the members. What could one have done oneself to be in a better situation when we ended up in a recession with high inflation? That is what is the cause of the decline. There lie the reasons why it became so much more expensive to both finance and produce housing, which has led to a dramatic decline in housing construction.
Leif Nysmed (S)
Madam Speaker! I would humbly say that we had not removed the investment support. Then we would not have stopped 20,000 new rental apartments at a lower cost, which was the goal for the apartments that we produced during the previous mandate period. The Minister for Housing does not usually mention that. He has invented his own goals that do not correspond with what was decided in this chamber.
The Minister for Housing mentions that the opportunity for transition and education must be strengthened. I agree with that. But shouldn't the reasonable thing in this situation be to take advantage of those who are already trained skilled workers and ensure that apprentices and construction workers are able to complete their educations?
In my speech, I will not only criticize the government, but I also want to give some tips on how the government can and should act to retain the professional competence that already exists in the industry, now that you are actually abolishing the only reform to retain that competence. You are removing the increase of the rotavdrag from 50,000 to 75,000, which would have solved so many problems. It does not seem to be so effective, or do you think that the construction crisis is over.
I will now come to the tips. Region Uppsala has adopted the advice that the union Byggnads has given for order and tidiness in the Swedish labor market. This includes, among other things, collective agreements with Swedish unions, advantages for companies that have their own staff, as well as a limitation on the number of subcontractors. Work shall be performed by professionally trained personnel with language skills. Requirements should be set on apprenticeship places and workplace-based learning. All companies must focus on the work environment and safety. Requirements should be set on ID06 cards, on that the main contractors shall be responsible for the personnel list, and on clear follow-up and control as well as sanctions.
These are reasonable requirements that should be set in public procurement within the construction sector to ensure that Swedish skilled workers are not laid off and outcompeted by unscrupulous actors. These are reasonable requirements so that those who want to train as skilled workers are also given the opportunity. These are reasonable requirements to ensure that the construction industry remains an attractive and serious industry even in the future.
Furthermore, it would be necessary for a labor market assessment to be reintroduced so that foreign labor is not exploited on Swedish construction sites under slave-like conditions. But there, the SD-led government is completely ideologically blinded, and I do not expect it to do a damn thing to rectify those problems.
Mr. Speaker, I hope that the Minister for Housing can nevertheless look at the other points that I listed to ensure that the competence supply that already exists in the country is taken care of so that it is not wiped out and disappears. This could also happen nationally, which would be good. It is possible if one wants to. We had those requirements even when it concerned the investment support, so it is possible to set them.
Markus Kallifatides (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for the previous answer!
I remind of the figure 8,500 in relation to the need of 23,700. For us Social Democrats, the situation regarding housing construction has now been acute for two years. We have proposed measures to meet this acute situation, without for that reason at all disregarding other types of more long-term change work that we or the current housing minister have initiated and advocate for. On some points, we are certainly also in agreement.
I believe the answer to the question "why?" is that it concerns a rather deep-seated resistance to investing public funds in the type of acute measures that, for example, a construction stimulus or favorable government loans would entail. It has gone so far, Madam Speaker, that the government in the budget bill and the parliamentary majority in the Civil Affairs Committee's report somehow claim that the reports the Housing Minister refers to when he takes a position on and evaluates the previous investment support do not exist. They both exist and do not exist. I interpret this as resistance. I regret this divide.
We Social Democrats stand firm that large parts of the country, including the Stockholm region, now - better late than never - need urgent measures to get shovels in the ground and housing built.
Statsrådet Andreas Carlson (KD)
Madam Speaker! Many thanks to Leif Nysmed for what he calls tips – we will, of course, take those into account and look at them a bit more closely.
There is very great consensus, I believe, that we are to get better order and clarity in the construction market and the construction sector. In the construction industry, people collaborate closely - both the construction companies and Byggnads have, of course, as Leif Nysmed pointed out, a common interest. I follow this work closely.
It is also important that the Delegation against work-related crime looks at and works with that which concerns the construction sector. An important part of the work to counter construction fraud and construction errors is to strengthen the control regarding the construction process. In accordance with the proposals in the government's budget bill, Boverket will, among other things, be allocated 10 million kronor to systematically work with countering construction errors.
Construction defects are estimated to result in real estate economic costs of as much as 80-110 billion kronor per year. These costs burden both public and private clients of buildings and increase construction costs. This also encompasses many more of the problems that Leif Nysmed described in his question, Madam Speaker.
In the budget bill, the government also allocates funds to Boverket to strengthen controls during the construction process and during the management phase. Strengthened controls reduce the risk of accidents and can also lead to cost savings and contribute to countering precisely work-life crime within the construction sector. We will, of course, gladly take note of further measures that can be considered.
Leif Nysmed (S)
Madam Speaker! I know we are not to use overly harsh words here in the chamber, but I must nevertheless say that I, at this time of the year, am somewhat sacredly furious. I do not think that the government takes the construction crisis and the crisis in housing construction seriously. It feels as if we are speaking to deaf ears. The proposals we are talking about here are things that may eventually end up on our table. There is nothing on the Riksdag's table to take hold of. Something is required now. It will take many years before a proposal submitted next year actually becomes a reality. By then, the entire mandate period will have passed.
Once again, I want to highlight all the workers who have been laid off due to the SD-led government's reluctance to tackle the construction crisis. I want to once again highlight all the construction apprentices who left the construction program this spring and who have not received any apprenticeship employment and thus will not be able to complete their vocational training. This government leaves all of them to their fate for many years to come.
None of the proposals mentioned here will have any effect. Two years of the mandate period have passed. We have not seen much of the kick-off. And unfortunately, it is far too long until the next election.
We Social Democrats have on several occasions proposed cross-bloc dialogues, because we have seen how the construction crisis has intensified and see how it will continue for a long time to come.
It is not, Madam Speaker, with joy that I go on Christmas break, but with great sorrow and concern for the construction industry. If it is with joy that the Minister for Housing leaves this debate, when construction workers have become unemployed, apprentices are not receiving their apprenticeships, and the bankruptcies among construction companies, which I have not even mentioned in this speech, are record-breaking, I do not know what to think.
I am thinking of one thing in any case: Sweden deserves a better government!
In conclusion, I would like to wish the Speaker, the staff on duty, and others in the chamber a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Statsrådet Andreas Carlson (KD)
Madam Speaker! Leif Nysmed does not escape the fact that even with the subsidies that were in place previously, in a boom and a low-interest environment - even a negative interest rate environment - so many houses as would have been needed were not built.
There are very many words and a high tone, but there is also a responsibility. If the measures that were not taken but were missing had been taken, we would have had simplified rules, shorter lead times, and made land available in attractive locations when we entered this situation. Then we would have been better prepared. But the skyrocketing inflation and the recession we entered have had very dramatic consequences.
To claim that one or more proposals in a shadow budget in the Riksdag would solve this is not quite honest, Madam Speaker.
It is fighting inflation and getting a better functioning housing market, which has been a problem for decades, that is the way forward.
Since then, it is important to take accurate measures. The Government has presented funds for housing development in the north, in municipalities that are expanding significantly, but the important thing is to continue to have momentum in the measures that would make the market function better, so that more people manage to make the calculations work when they, for example, are going to build rental apartments.
The consultation period regarding the proposals on the presumption rental system expires on Monday, the day before Christmas Eve, and we will, of course, look at the consultations, analyze them, and get back. I believe there is a broad consensus that it is a tough situation, but that we also need accurate measures that provide hope for those seeking housing in Sweden and for those who today face a tough reality in the construction industry. We take that most seriously.
In conclusion, I would also like to wish the members a Merry Christmas. Thank you for this debate!
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.