Plug-in balcony solar panels will go on sale in Lidl stores across Great Britain within months, following government moves to modernise regulations for “plug-and-play” devices that connect via a standard mains socket without formal installation. The UK is drawing on continental experience, where Germany alone adds around 500,000 such micro-PV units a year, to cut household grid demand and exposure to volatile fossil fuel prices linked to the Iran war and wider Middle East conflict. In parallel, the new Future Homes Standard will require most new low-rise homes to incorporate on-site renewable electricity generation, predominantly roof-mounted PV, alongside low-carbon heating such as heat pumps or heat networks.

Government has launched a 12-week consultation on merging the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB) into a single Industry Training Board covering construction and engineering construction across England, Scotland and Wales. The consultation, open until 23:59 on Sunday 14 June 2026, seeks views on governance, levy arrangements (including extending levy orders beyond the current three-year maximum), and the scope of employers covered. The move follows Mark Farmer’s 2023 ITB review, which called for a merged, employer-led body focused on attraction, training, retraining and retention to address structural workforce shortages.

Government plans to ban retention withholding in construction, cap payment terms from large firms to small suppliers at 60 days, and mandate late-payment interest at 8% above the Bank of England base rate written into contracts. The Small Business Commissioner would gain powers to investigate suspected poor payers, adjudicate disputes outside court, and levy “significant” fines in the tens of millions, plus force large companies to publish explanations for poor performance. Construction bodies, including the National Federation of Builders, are pushing for alternative performance mechanisms such as accessible surety bonds or insurance during the consultation on the retention ban’s implementation.