Barratt Redrow plc

Good morning everyone and welcome to our full year results presentation. So as usual, I'm going to start with an overview of the year, have a look at current trading and have a look at our priorities looking ahead. Stephen will then take you through our operational performance and Mike will cover off our financials. and I'll then come back to talk about the industry fundamentals, sustainability, and to conclude. So I think first to reflect on the year, we've delivered another really strong operational performance and a good financial performance against what is clearly a very challenging operating environment. So total home completions at 17,206, down 3.9% on last year. But clearly two very different halves. So we saw growth in the first half, and that reversed in the second half, given the reservation backdrop since September 22nd. Overall for the year, adjusted pre-tax profit of $884 million. 16% below the record that we set in FY22, but a touch ahead of consensus expectations and clearly a reflection of the softer demand and pricing that we've seen since September 22 and ongoing build cost inflation. Return on capital employed at 22.2% was impacted primarily by the decline in profitability. A very strong net cash position at 1.1 billion, and that is after 360 million of dividend payments and the completion of our 200 million share buyback programme. And then growth in our year-end net tangible asset per share of 20 pence or 4.5% to 467 pence. I'd just like to take this moment to acknowledge the tremendous hard work and dedication from our employees, subcontractors and our supply chain partners. you know that I would always do that, but it has clearly been a particularly challenging year. If we look at current trading, since the financial year end, we have seen a continuation of the softer reservation rate. Our private reservation rate over the period through to the 27th of August has been at 0.42%. 30% below the 0.6 in the same period last year. But in this period, we've seen a very limited uplift from sales to the private rental sector or to registered providers. And as the year develops, we expect another solid uplift to our private reservation rate through additional sales to PRS and registered providers. with transactions already planned over the coming months, and our long-term partnership with Citra Living continuing to generate reservations. Our average active outlet position at 374 is still more than 10% ahead of last year. But we do expect that this will unwind a bit as we move through FY24, as sites which have been extended by the lower reservation rate move towards completion. And lastly, we're pleased to be 49% forward sold with respect to our FY24 private completion guidance. So if we move on to looking forward, we're focused on four key areas. driving reservations and driving completions through the business. We'll use our industry-leading quality and customer service to attract our core private homebuyers, help them to access affordable mortgages and tailor incentives to help them buy. In addition, we are focused on securing reservations from alternative channels. This involves building on our strategic partnership with Citra Living, as well as our long-standing relationships with RPs, public sector bodies, and other investors, all of which will support our build activity and completions in FY24. Secondly, we are focused on costs. Stephen will cover this in more detail, but we're focused on managing our build activity and getting our build costs down as market pricing adjusts. We've taken 6% out of our group headcount from the end of September 22 through to the financial year end. And our operating costs are under constant review. And we will adjust our cost base as is necessary. We have an experienced management team. We know what levers to pull depending on how the market evolves. Thirdly, we will maintain our highly selective approach to land buying, particularly as prevailing land prices have not yet adjusted to the changed market conditions. Finally, we will continue to lead the industry around sustainability. This encompasses everything from the actions we can deliver today, for example around construction waste, to our development of zero carbon homes for 2030. Finally, we continue to expect to deliver between 13,250 and 14,250 total home completions in FY24. Thank you, and with that, I will now hand over to Stephen to take us through our operational performance.

Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. Today, I'll take you through the usual operational updates and provide some additional detail around our changing reservation mix, our operational performance, as well as our land bank position as we manage through the market uncertainty. Our sales performance is detailed here on slide 7. Our wholly owned reservation rate at 0.55 net private reservations per outlet per week was 32.1% below the 0.81 generated in FY22, reflecting the softening in demand through the year. Reservations fell back sharply in late September 2022. showed the typical seasonal uplift coming into calendar 23, but then softened again from mid-May as mortgage rates moved higher. Our drive to develop sales through alternative channels, primarily in the PRS or private rental sector, and with additional private sales to IPs or registered providers of social housing, generated 0.10 of the FY23 reservation rate, sharply upon the 0.03 contributed in FY22. I will detail more around our change in reservation mix in a moment. Total average sales outlets were 10.5% higher at 367, reflecting firstly the opening of 104 new sales outlets, and secondly, the significantly lower reservation rate, which extended the sales activity of a number of our outlets. Looking to FY24, we expect total average sales outlets will be around 6% lower, reflecting both reduced outlet openings as well as sites temporarily extended, which will draw to a close. In the bottom table, we have detailed the absolute movements in our private order book in FY22 and FY23, which helps calibrate, firstly, the degree to which, despite the 25.4% decline in private reservations, our elevated private order book was able to support private completions in FY23. And secondly, the impact of this lower denominator of the contribution of PRS and RP reservations as our activity with Citra expanded significantly in the year, particularly with the turnkey deal involving 604 homes, which we announced on 30 June. We've clearly seen a significant shift in the private reservation mix, as I've just highlighted. Here in slide eight, for the first time, we've broken out the private reservation customer mix in FY22 and FY23. There are really three points I'd like to highlight. Firstly, you can see the challenges faced by the first-time buyers. They accounted for 37% of reservations in FY22, but this declined to 25% in FY23. Help to buy is included within these shares, but the impact of help to buy's closure is clear. With help to buy accounting for 20% of the 37% share in FY22, but just 3% of the 25% first-time buyer share in FY23. Secondly, the increased use of part exchange is clear here too. Part exchange is a tool we understand and we manage very carefully. PatExchange moved from 4% of reservations in FY22 to 11% in FY23, but it's a tool our sales teams use carefully to help unlock sales. By way of context, PatExchange usage ramped from 9% to 15% over the five years prior to the pandemic, so 11% sits well within this historic range. Finally, you can see quite clearly how important our self-help measures have been through the strategic move to develop sales with PRS and RPs, with their share of reservations increasing from 3% in FY22 to 17% in FY23. PRS sales can't simply be turned on. The groundwork began more than two years ago with our partnership with Citra Living, targeting the delivery of 1,000 homes annually. With the combined impacts in the autumn of both the end of Help to Buy and the step up in mortgage interest rates, our PRS activity has become a key support to our reservation and completion volumes relative to the wider industry. We expect to continue growing our PRS and RP activity in the current market, where our individual private buyers are thwarted by current mortgage rate and affordability challenges. Turning now to completions on slide 9. We delivered 17,206 total completions, 3.9% lower than FY22. The benefit of our strong order book and the disciplined growth in construction activity helped support first half completion growth. The second half, however, was impacted by the weaker reservation activity from late September onwards. On pricing, our private average selling price improved by 7.9%. Applying our analysis for light-for-light matching house types and sites, we estimate annual house price inflation was around 6.3%. House price inflation was also relatively uniform across the UK, with our West, Central, Scotland and Southern regions ahead of the group average, and London, the weaker region. In terms of the bridge from 6.3% to the reported 7.9% increase in private sales, we had a positive impact from an increased proportion of larger home completions outside London, as well as London contributed a larger share of completions in the year. This was then offset by increased proportion of completions delivered to PRS and RPs. We've included here the completion volumes and ASPs for the homes completed with Citra, which we hope will help modelling the mix for FY24. Our affordable average selling price at just over £167,000 was 4.9% ahead and reflected a shift in site mix, along with a higher proportion of London completions. In FY24, we expect the affordable average selling price will remain broadly in line with the average in FY23. The group's overall average selling price improved by 6.5%, reflecting the higher proportion of affordable homes at 24% from 22% in FY22. Now turning to slide 10. I want to cover off some of our key performance measures around productivity, customer satisfaction, safety and build quality. On build, our teams have done a tremendous job in the year, growing output by more than 10% in the first quarter and then managing our site activity to align with the slowdown in market demand and customer completions through the balance of FY23. Across the year, construction output equated to an average of 322 equivalent homes each week. Total legal completions averaged 331 per week. So whilst the value of WIP has increased, which Michael touched on, this is a reflection of bill cost inflation rather than volume, which has been tightly controlled. In FY24, we are again aiming to align construction activity with reservations as they evolve to ensure we carry an efficient but responsive bill position on our sites and tight control on our balance sheet. On HPF customer satisfaction scoring, building on our 14-year record, I can report we remain comfortably five-star in the current reporting period with our latest rolling annual score at 92.4%. The one area where our performance dipped in FY23 and where we need to improve is around our injury incidence rate, which increased in the year to 289%. The increase again centred on minor slips and trips, but we are challenging our divisions to find new ways to change behaviours. We've also engaged with our employees and subcontractors to help develop target plans to drive our IIR lower. The 2023 NHBC Prior on the Job Awards programme began in June and we're delighted that once again we led the industry with 96 of our site managers securing the coveted award, making it a 19th year where we've secured more awards than any other house builder. Our industry-leading build quality was also maintained once again through our FY23. We consistently ranked first amongst the major house builders group with average reportable items. RI's at 0.16 and we've now ranked first in the industry for four years on this key build inspection measure. Turning now to slide 11 and bill cost inflation. On total bill cost inflation, our view for FY24 has not changed since July, with inflation estimated at around 5% for FY24. On material pricing, which we estimate at around 60% of bill costs, we have seen inflationary pressures easing. And we're also now seeing price reductions in some key product areas, notably bricks, plastic-related products, timber and steel. Prices and expectations are adjusting, particularly where energy hedging arrangements for our supplies are unwinding to lower levels. We had supply agreements in place for 73% of our material needs to December 23, and 14% through to June 2024, as at the year end. And we're looking to secure improved terms over the coming months. Around our labour costs, which we estimate make up around 40% of our build costs, as you'd expect, we continue to see signs of softening, particularly in trades at the front end of new site development, where activity is continuing to decline. We're currently entering into short-term contracts with our subcontractors to take advantage of the reducing cost base. New contracts reflecting latest rates and rate reductions are also being used to renegotiate existing arrangements through collaboration with our subcontractor network. So pulling it all together, we still currently see 5% as very much a realistic view on total bill cost inflation in FY24. Turning now to our land bank on slide 12. As you're aware, We paused almost all land buying activity given the market uncertainties and reported net cancellations in the year of 812 plus. Reflecting both on completions and the pause in our land buying activity, our owned and controlled land bank has reduced but remains strong at 4.3 years supply on a trailing basis but 5.4 years on our midpoint guidance for FY24. Critically, over 81% of our owned land bank has detailed consent at the year end, and I can confirm we have detailed consents in place on all FY24 schedule completions. With current land activity paused, we've had our teams focus on our strategic land position, which has grown significantly in FY23, increasing by more than 10,300 plots during the year, and Gladman grew in its promotional land by more than 3,000 plots. we will maintain a highly selective approach to land buying in FY24. So in summary, we've delivered a strong operating performance in the year. Build cost inflation, after unprecedented rates of inflation over the last couple of years, is now beginning to ease. Our land buying remains paused, but we do not feel under pressure to resume land purchases. And finally, we have incredibly strong management teams who I have no doubt will make the right operational decisions as we manage through the year ahead to maximise value from our land bank and control our capital employed. So thank you everyone. I'll now hand over to Mike.

Thanks, Stephen, and good morning, everyone. So let me now take you through our financial performance. So first of all, a look at the headline numbers on slide 14, which demonstrate our good financial performance in what's been a very challenging year. Group revenue was £5.3 billion, up slightly on last year as our reduced volume was offset by the increased ASP that Stephen touched on a few minutes ago. Adjusted operating profit was £862.9 million. That's 18% below the prior year, with the adjusted operating margin down 380 basis points to 16.2%. Steve has already touched on the impact of inflation, and I'll cover the key drivers in our overheads and operating margin shortly. Our results include adjusted items relating to both external wall systems and reinforced concrete frames, which together totaled £179.2 million. Adjusted EPS was 67.3 pence, 18.9% below last year. And so based on our dividend policy for this year of cover at two times adjusted earnings, we'll pay a total dividend of 33.7 pence for the year, with the final dividend of 23.5 pence being paid in early November. Our balance sheet once again remains strong, and we closed the year with a net cash position of £1.1 billion. So turning now to adjusted operating margin, this chart breaks down the key movements that we've seen during the year. First of all, we saw only a small 30 basis point reduction from the reduced volume in the year. There was, however, a significant impact from inflation, which reduced margin by 170 basis points, with build cost inflation running, as we said, between 9% and 10% during the year, which more than offset the underlying sales price inflation of 6.3%. Our London developments diluted margin by 20 basis points, with a slightly greater share of completions in the year from developments which had been previously impaired. During the year, we recorded an additional £28 million in completed development charges, which had a 60 basis point year-on-year margin impact. And those charges reflect a number of things, including the extended timeframes for the adoption of roads and public open space, together with some remedial works on certain of our sites during the year. Changes in sales mix, increased selling costs and some aborted costs around land transactions and other smaller items created a 70 basis point negative impact. And finally, our increased administrative expenses reduced the margin by 30 basis points during the year. So if I turn now to those overheads and adjusted items in more detail. So administrative expenses increased by £14 million to £267.5 million. And that's lower than our initial guidance for the year, with employee performance pay costs around £34 million lower than last year. And we'd expect that to normalise as we come through into FY24. The £48 million net increase in other administrative costs during the year had three main drivers. First of all, the impact of the 4% annual salary award to colleagues and also the cost of living supplements that we awarded colleagues during the year. This year we had a full year impact of Gladman compared to only five months last year, which contributed around £10 million of extra costs. and also some additional costs from our building safety unit as remediation activity accelerated and we increased our activity in that area. So looking forward to FY24, we currently expect administrative costs will be between 290 and 300 million pounds. And as I said, that increase largely reflects the normalization of employee performance pay costs. So let me touch now in more detail on the adjusted items. And firstly, on external wall systems, we recognised the net charge of £117.7 million during the year. After signing the legal agreement with government in the spring, we contacted all of the relevant building owners again, and that was partly responsible for the net increase of 55 buildings in the period, with the total under review now 278. Secondly, as we've now tendered more contracts for remedial work, we revised our average plot cost up from £21,000 to £23,000, which reflects our latest view of the remediation costs based on tender returns. We also benefited from a technical £52 million credit as the discount rate increased in line with UK gilt rates during the year, and we had a further £2.7 million of cost recoveries during the year. On a separate note, negotiations are still ongoing with the Scottish Government and Homes for Scotland with respect to the contract which will codify the Scottish Safer Buildings Accord. So for the time being, the Scottish buildings in our portfolio have been provided on the same basis as those in England and Wales. If I move on now to reinforced concrete frame, here we've recognised a net charge of £61.5 million during the year, with £23.7 million recognised in JVs and the remaining £37.8 million in the group's operations. So this charge includes the finalised remediation plans for one remaining development in the original Cityscape-led review, where additional work was identified in five buildings. The remaining buildings in the Cityscape review are now undergoing or have completed remediation works. And finally, as we highlighted with our July trading update, we identified two further developments where remediation works may be required. Although our initial cost estimate was up to £40 million, we recorded £10 million in the year for remediation, of which we've spent £2.4 million by the year end. And we hope to have a clearer picture of whether any further work will be required by the time we report our half-year results in February. So moving on to cash flow on slide 18, and this chart highlights the strength of the cash generation from our business. Taking you through the bridge from our reported operating profit of £707.4 million, we made net interest and tax payments of £175 million during the year. The cash flow benefited from £165 million of positive working capital movements, which include the add-back of the adjusted item charges and various movements in receivables and payables. We spent £33 million on remediation works during the year, and we invested an incremental £146 million into work-in-progress, part-exchange properties and new promotion agreements. Within this total, we added £70.5 million of part exchange properties onto the balance sheet during the year, but of those part tax properties held at the year end, more than 63% had secured onward sales already. We also invested £69 million into work in progress, with as Stephen highlighted, WIP experiencing build cost inflation throughout the year and more equivalent units being completed than constructed during the year. As you would expect, the net impact of land was low this year, with the majority of land payments already committed as we came into the financial year. And these, together with a positive £57 million impact from joint venture dividends and reduced JV investments, resulted in £544 million of positive operating cash flow. Our investment and financing spend of £52 million included £23 million in relation to our new timber frame factory, which opened during the year in Derby. And so after dividend payments totalling £360 million and £201 million spent on the share buyback, we saw a net cash outflow of £69.2 million for the year. If I can turn briefly to the balance sheet now, I've already touched on the key movements in working capital during the year. And the other movements in the balance sheet relate to the step down in land activity, our management of net working capital and the increase in legacy property provisions. Net assets at the end of June were £5.6 billion, lower by £35 million over the year, with our retained profit offset by the impact of dividends and share buybacks. So if I can move on just to give a bit of colour on the status of our land bank, we've again broken this out in a little bit more detail. And the estimated gross margin in the land bank as a whole has reduced from 25.8% at the end of 2022 to 19.7% at the year end this year. There are three key contributors to this gross margin decline. First of all, the decline in house prices seen since the end of FY22 have reduced our future pricing expectations across the land bank. Secondly, the impact of continued build cost inflation. And again, as a reminder, we price the whole land bank today from today's perspective on both sales prices and build costs. And thirdly, the slower reservation rate means that we carry increased site overheads on each plot as site lives lengthen. Around half of the land bank plots have an estimated gross margin in excess of 20%, and we still believe impairment risk to be relatively low across the portfolio as a whole. A 5% fall in house prices from today we believe would result in impairment charges of around £10 million, or only 0.3% of the land bank's carrying value. So just moving on to our operating framework, and as you know, this has been in place for a number of years and helps us drive discipline throughout the business. It's also helped us to maintain our strong and resilient balance sheet. We were in our target range for all of the framework metrics at the end of June. During the year, we extended our £700 million rolling credit facility to November 2027, with two further one-year extension periods to November 29, if we agree with our lenders. That facility remains undrawn for the time being. The strength of our balance sheet means we're well placed to navigate the current market uncertainty, and we'll continue to apply our operating framework in FY24 as we adjust the size of the business to the current market. Finally, just to highlight some guidance for FY24, as David touched on earlier, we still expect to deliver between 13,250 and 14,250 total home completions for the year. Average sales outlets will reduce slightly during the year, but our overall site numbers are expected to remain resilient. I've already touched on our overhead expectations, and on land I don't expect any significant changes from our current approach, but we already have land commitments of around £500 million, and we'd expect overall land spend to be in the range of £500 to £700 million for the full year. We currently anticipate ending the year with a net cash balance of between £700 and £800 million. And finally, the Board reviewed our capital allocation policy, and while we continue to believe that excess capital should be returned to shareholders when it's appropriate to do so, we don't believe that now is the right time to put the balance sheet under more pressure, and therefore we decided not to begin a second share buyback at this point in the market cycle. We have, however, confirmed that we'll retain our stated dividend policy, which reduces dividend cover to 1.75 times for the FY24 financial year. And with that, let me hand back to David. Thank you.

Thank you, Mike. So now turning to the market fundamentals. We recognise that the country faces an acute need for more houses across all tenures. Undersupply is evident given rent inflation in the private rental sector. Waiting lists and stock quality issues in the social housing sector. And now mortgage affordability is challenging those looking to move into home ownership or up the housing ladder. Whilst successive governments have put increased house building at the centre of their domestic policy agendas... the lack of resourcing and the politicization of the planning system has meant that the fundamental challenge of inadequate housing supply remains. Consumer surveys over many years continue to highlight that the vast majority of the population want to own their own home. Whilst employment remains robust, inflation, and cost of living pressures continue to act as a drag on consumer confidence. Turning specifically to planning and the land market, and then also to mortgages on the next slides. This slide, which we've shown many times before, charts planning consents and net new build additions in England. along with the SABL's Greenfield Development Land Price Index. Planning consents on an annual basis, the light green line, have remained ahead of new build home additions. But as you can see here, annualised consents peaked in June 2021 at £340,000. and we're running some 20% below this level through to March 2023 at 270,000. With five changes in housing ministers in the last 16 months, the government's decision to make local housing targets advisory not mandatory, limited planning department resourcing, and the increase in nutrient neutrality issues the planning situation has clearly become more extreme, with planning consents down 25% in the first quarter of calendar 2023 alone. We are hopeful that last week's announcement around nutrient neutrality will be delivered through the levelling up bill becoming legislation, but there are parliamentary hurdles which remain to be cleared. The industry needs a steady and consistent supply of land, which will allow the industry and the supply chain to build and invest with confidence and help the land market to find a competitive level for land prices, which, as you can see, are only 5% from their peak, according to Savills. On mortgage affordability, here are charts which you again have seen before. On the left hand showing the proportion of average post-tax income spent on monthly mortgage interest and capital payments, which is from Halifax. The affordability of mortgages following recent rate rises is now at around 41% of post-tax earnings. On the right hand side of the slide, the chart details average mortgage rates at 75% and 90% loan to value lending. Tracking this through from January 20. And when you look at the highlights, the steady increase in mortgage rates from the fourth quarter of 2021 through to August 2022 is notable. The spike back in September 22 and October and the moderation in mortgage rates through April which followed. And the step up we have seen since with rates now above last year's spike through July. This is clearly not a helpful position for our customers or potential customers. Although the spread between 75% and 90% LTV lending has tightened through to October, helping hire loan-to-value borrowers onto the housing ladder. Now, turning to our three pillars around sustainability. Around people, as Mike mentioned, we provided our cost-of-living support package of £2,000 to all of our employees below senior management through PPP. financial year 23. We also enhanced family-friendly policies which have extended maternity, paternity and carer leave for all employees. Around place, we are ready for the full adoption of new building standards across all developments which came into full effect in mid-June. We launched our eHome2 project in Salford, which is now delivering data and insights as we develop our house types to deliver zero carbon homes. And with regards to nature, our recognition on CDP Climate Change A-list is the standout for the year, a first for a UK house builder, and ranking us in the top 300 companies globally. Our construction waste performance is also very noteworthy, with a further 13% reduction in waste to 4.31 tonnes per 100 square metres of legally completed build area. Over the last two years, we have taken almost 27% out of construction waste on this measure, Finally, I'm pleased to confirm that all our development designs submitted for planning since January have identified a minimum biodiversity net gain of at least 10%. This is well ahead of legislation coming in in November 23. Biodiversity net gain is a relatively new concept, but in essence, our designs have to identify how we will create developments that, through careful design pre-planning, can deliver biodiversity at least 10% better than before we started and maintain that over a minimum period of 30 years post-development. Ultimately, we are clearly driving progress and enhancing our credentials with landowners and planners by creating great places where people can live and nature can thrive. As Steven and Mike have discussed, we have a strong business model. We do operate with one of the shortest land banks in the industry. We've always said that we view land as a raw material on which to build homes for our customers. and we have no desire to hold more land than our business requires. This improves our return on capital employed, reduces our risk profile, and ensures we are able to cycle through our land more rapidly than the industry. Also, reflecting our previous focus on growth, we are under no pressure to resume land buying. with some 5.4 years of supply based on our midpoint guidance. And as such, we can see how the market evolves. We have an incredibly strong balance sheet and through disciplined operational controls, we are highly cash generative. We have strong build and sales teams throughout the group. and we will continue to lead the industry on customer service and build quality. We also have demonstrated the skills to successfully develop alternative sales channels such as PRS. We operate across the country, building all product types and appealing to all buyer types, ensuring we can move with market changes and avoid undue reliance on any specific segment. And finally, we clearly lead the industry on sustainability because we understand how important this is to our business, our operations, and for all of our stakeholders. These attributes put us in a very strong position to support our business performance in the short term and ensure that we can outperform in the medium to long term. In conclusion, we have delivered a very strong operational and a good financial performance in what has clearly been a very challenging year. We have maintained our industry-leading customer service, build quality and sustainability positions. We do expect that the backdrop will continue to be challenging over the coming months, but we are clearly a resilient business because we are responsive and we can adapt. We have an experienced management team and we are financially strong with both a strong balance sheet and land bank. We are absolutely focused on driving sales. managing build activity as Stephen has outlined and controlling costs as Mike has touched on. We're going to stay highly selective on our approach to land buying and maintain our position as the leading national sustainable house builder. We remain committed to building the communities that our customers want to live in delivering the high-quality sustainable homes to help address the country's housing crisis and also to drive long-term sustainable returns for our business. Thank you very much. We now move to questions. And I think if people, we have roving mics, and if people could identify themselves and their employer, maybe give a short job description. And then I'll chair and pass out questions as normal, saving all the simple ones for myself. Thank you.

Morning. Thank you. Chris Millington-Newmis, a few if I could, please. First one is just on bill cost inflation. Still a bit surprised to see 5% now for 24, particularly in the backdrop of the plastics, the steel, the timber, the labour. I'm assuming there's some big items there still kind of moving it on, or is it a bit of a legacy issue? Number two is just about the land you're committed to in 2024. There's 500 million there. Now, is this going to come through at or below the average land bank margin? Because clearly it's been subject to those same pressures. And the third one is just about nutrient neutrality and just how many sites have you got stalled in that system? And do you think it's going to make a major difference to pricing within the land market? Thank you.

Chris, thank you very much. So if Stephen picks up in terms of the build cost inflation and Mike will pick up in terms of our land commitments. So just in terms of nutrient neutrality, I mean, I think we've all seen this position of nutrient neutrality evolve since 2019. And we are now in a position where 74 local authorities in England are have effectively a declared nutrient neutrality issue. The HBF have really clocked up the plots across the market and have published a number of reports saying that they believe there are 140,000 plots stalled in the system because of nutrient neutrality. So clearly 140,000 plots is a very significant quantity of plots. So we are encouraged by the proposed changes that the government are putting forward for the levelling up bill, but we recognise that that's got to go through some hurdles in Parliament and it may or may not go into legislation. We've said previously that we have 2,500 plots that we've identified as being caught up in the issue. But to some extent, I think you would understand that we've sought not to contract on sites that are subject to nutrient neutrality issues. So a lot of these stalled sites will be in the ownership of the original landowner rather than in the ownership of house builder. We don't see that any changes will improve our position for FY24. But we will start to see improvements coming through for FY26 and beyond for the industry if the legislation passes. If I pass to Stephen in terms of build cost.

Morning, Chris. In terms of build cost, I think you have to take into context of where we're coming from. Last year, we were running around 9-10%. With materials, circa 13-14%. Labour... 6%, so we're coming from that sort of background. We're sort of targeting 5% for the year. Clearly we'll update at the half-year position. Early days yet, but we are starting to see some reductions. I think we reported in July that we're seeing some of the breaker prices start to move. The issue with a number of our suppliers, they are hedged on energy and they're not expecting the energy prices to be unwound. until the end of the calendar year so it'll be probably into 24 when we start seeing some of the brick prices and other prices flowing through you also have to take into the into account the lag in terms of getting materials to our site so we're monitoring all the prices coming out of the mills so you know we're tracking for example mild steel pricing and mild steel pricing is now back to sort of 2021 rates as is plastics But by the time that gets through to our suppliers who then manufacture lintels or garage doors or appliances, it's going to take a few months to hit our actual supply chain. So we're saying for the FY24, we see 5% as being a reasonable position. Timber has moved consistently down. We were warned that timber would probably go back up in September, but in fact timber's gone down further in September, which was against the suggestions coming out of the timber suppliers last month and the month before. In terms of labour, a key component, which is about 40% of our cost. The industry had an 8% increase, which was agreed by the Construction Working Council back in June time, so that's flowing through. So it's not easy to turn some of these things off from that background. But there's a lot of moving parts, a lot for us to do. We've deliberately... entered into short-term contracts over the last few years because we didn't want to enter into long-term and fix our prices. So you'll see we've only got something like 14% fixed for H2, and we see that as a great opportunity to...

move back uh on some of the uh the bill cost increases we've seen but there's a wide spectrum of potential outcomes um at this point yeah hope that helps it does thank you just on the land point chris i think um we're still committed to our gross margin hurdle of 23 when we're buying land and we haven't bought any land below that hurdle um at the point at which we commit to it obviously that's easier when you're not buying much land in the round And on the land creditor and the commitments for the year specifically, so we expect about $320 million of land creditor payments during the year. That land is already on the balance sheet, and so it's in the land bank that we put up earlier. And then the remaining $180 million is sort of more recent land, which, as I say, has been acquired at that 23% margin hurdle rate. So that will come into the balance sheet over the course of the next few months. That's great. Thanks, Chris.

Just pass the mic amongst yourselves.

Will. Thanks, Will Jones from Redburn Atlantic. Three, please, if I can. First, just if you could update on pricing. Can we infer that it's been pretty stable sequentially since you spoke to us in July? What are the best thoughts and plans for autumn? And more generally, how... do you think demand is to changes in prices? Would a few percent make much of a difference, do you think, if you take them lower? The second one is when you think about your land spend intentions for the year ahead and what it might mean in tandem with the land bank for outlets thereafter, do you think it's enough to stabilize outlets after the 6% decline on average you're expecting this year or might outlets trend a bit lower in June 2025? I appreciate that's a fair way off. And then the last one was just around surplus capital. Previously, you've talked to us about that being... thought of as net cash, less land creditors, but to what extent should we be thinking about taking off provisions as well against that, given the rising balance? Thanks.

Thanks, Will. So if Mike picks up in terms of surplus capital, and I'll just pick up on both the pricing and land intentions. So I think you touched on in terms of pricing. I mean, yes, I would say pricing has been very consistent from July through to the present day. We've said previously that there's been relatively little movement in headline price, and it's really all been about incentives and incentives moving up from circa 3% to 6%, 6% plus. I think in terms of the elasticity around it, in terms of the private customer, my sense is that reductions in pricing are not going to make a big difference to demand. I think when you look at the affordability challenge, the affordability challenge is in large part about being able to secure the mortgage and be able to secure the high loan-to-value or secure deposit and secure the higher loan-to-value mortgage. So I think taking 5% or 10% off the price doesn't fundamentally alter that equation. So I don't see that it's kind of... The elasticity is there in a big way. And also, I think we recognize that if all market pricing moves down, you just end up in a similar position and at a lower price. It's not like you can do it in secret. So the reality is that you just end up with an adjustment in that way. I think the one area that I would call it as being different to that, I would say, would be in relation to PRS, where I think that is very much about there is elasticity in the market. We feel that a key offer from our perspective is about quality. So our ability to build the homes to an agreed time frame at the right level of quality, I think, sets us out in relation to that PRS market. And that's a key thing where people are looking to deploy capital is they want the homes delivered on time at the right quality level. In terms of outlets and land spend, I mean, it's sort of really, there's two or three questions within that. So I would say that We're guiding for a reduction in outlets at around 6% across the year. But clearly, if we don't step back into the land market at some point during FY24, there will clearly be a reduction again in FY25. And that's something that we'll just update on as we move through the year. And we're doing a lot that we can to try to mitigate that position. So first of all, making sure that our sites, as much as they can be, are dual branded. So we have both Barrett and David Wilson on as many sites as we can. And secondly, we've been doing more swapping with other house builders, so where we can get onto one of their sites and they can get onto one of our sites, and broadly it's a nil cash position, then that obviously makes a lot of sense in terms of the efficiency of our land bank. So we'll keep pushing that agenda in terms of site swaps. Mike?

Yeah, just on surplus capital. So on the building remediation provisions, we've got just over £600 million provided. We think that will unwind over the next four or five years. So as I said earlier, we spent about £33 million in the year just gone. We'll spend over £100 million in FY24. And so the run rate spend on that will probably be somewhere between £1 and £200 million a year. So as we're looking at surplus capital, you're right, the vanilla definition we look at is net cash, less capital. land creditors and obviously the land credit for unwind tends to be much shorter term in nature it's over the next year or two which is why we sort of take that off but clearly as the board sort of stepped back and looked at the market position and the strength of the balance sheet and the other commitments we've got the building safety provisions were one of the factors that we were we were thinking about I don't think we'll change the way we sort of define excess cash in the short run but you know we want to look at all the factors in the round when we're making those decisions And we just felt given the level of uncertainty in the market from here right now, we weren't confident to return extra capital and put the balance sheet potentially at risk as we went through the year. So the primary goal is the strength of the balance sheet and making sure it stays in the position that it's in.

I think we had a plan to start at the back, actually.

Thank you. Gregor from UBS. So maybe just two questions then. So just coming back to the land bank margin and sort of the outlook you're giving, I think you're saying so slightly shy of 20. I mean, clearly you're going to run below that this year. So I want to understand. kind of what gets you back to that 19.7 what needs to happen is it a question of volume leverage or is there something else in the mix or or perhaps the sort of price cost spread that you're seeing in fy24 isn't baked into that number just just so we can get a sense on that please and then maybe coming back to the cash i mean you've kind of given us some guide now on the provision on one hundred million i mean land creditors i think you said 320 grows down maybe a calculate on the gross land spend, maybe 100 million back in on the deferred land spend, something like that. Is there anything else to think about in terms of getting to the cash, maybe on work in progress, anything to get us the building blocks to that net cash guidance for the year ahead? Thank you. Mike, do you want to pick one, both of them?

So I think on the land back margin, Gregor, the two points that you flag really are the key differentials. So the first is the fixed cost leverage as that drops through the P&L, which clearly the reduction in volume that we're seeing come through means that that's having a significant impact on the net margins. And obviously we're carrying fixed costs in the sites as well, which means there is a differential coming through from that. So that's the first piece. And then really it's the inflation dynamic coming through that's driven the majority of the reduction. So if we can bring the volumes back, then we should be able to realise that full margin potential from the land bank. In terms of the cash-moving parts, I think we've touched on the key pieces, I think. The land spend of between £500 million and £700 million is one of the key building blocks. We're expecting, as I say, north of £100 million, probably closer to £120 million, £130 million out on building safety during the year, and obviously profitability and working capital, the other two building blocks in the mix. So I think they're the key moving parts. And the difference in the guidance that we've given really is the movement we expect to see in working capital coming through.

Just to be clear on the price cost of where you mark your land bank, that's at the 30th of June. Does that include sort of the... 5% that you know about, I guess, that's coming through and the sort of mark-to-market on incentives. So just is it like a spot-run rate kind of number?

It's the pricing that was there at the end of June. And the costs that you envisage. And the costs that we can see at that point in time that we've got. So in other words, it does bake in the headwind of different places. Yes, all of the sites are sort of revalued, if you like, and the costs are updated once a quarter for every site on a rotational basis. So they're as current as they can be at the end of June. Okay, thank you.

two quick ones actually just interested if you see any comment on kind of cancellation rates during the summer obviously it's been weak market just hear what you've seen there and then I'm interested again just on any extra kind of conversation you've had with government do you expect any government support to be forthcoming obviously getting close to general election as well thanks

Okay, I mean, if I just pick up both of those briefly. I mean, cancellation rates, I think we've steered away about talking specifically about cancellation rates because we're obviously giving net reservation rates, i.e. including any cancellation. So I think to some extent we just end up talking about the same thing in two different ways. We've not seen anything remarkably different in cancellations if you look over the last eight weeks or you look over the last six months, right? Clearly, post-September 22, we did see a step up in cancellations. And you've got a double whammy, that you've got less gross reservations, more cancellations, and therefore the cancellation percentage rises. The other point, which I would just add in, which I know you didn't ask the question, but the other point is we're seeing a very low level of down valuations. And I think that that is a positive to the extent that The banks are not expressing a concern, implied through down valuations, about pricing per se. So I think that is encouraging because, as you know, when we saw a very, very difficult market in 08-09, we saw very high levels of down valuations and that's absolutely not the case. In terms of government, I think we have a reasonably regular dialogue with government, particularly with the Housing Minister. Clearly, Parliament's been in recess and they're only just back. I actually have a meeting with the Housing Minister tomorrow. I think most of our dialogue with government has been about planning and about nutrient neutrality and how we can seek to improve the supply side. We understand that government made a decision for well-documented reasons. to stop the Help to Buy programme. It had been in place for nine years and it was well trailed that it was going to stop in effect in 2022 for reservations. So we're operating our business very much on the basis that we want government to improve the supply side. We're not expecting any changes in terms of demand side support. Right, we'll go into the second row now, I think.

Thank you. Emily Biddles from Barclays. I've got three, please. Just the first one on down valuations, are you seeing any increase there at all? Secondly, on the bill cost inflation guidance of 5%, I assume for your age too that implies something that's low single digit. I was wondering if you'd be drawn on sort of what you think the best case scenario there could be if sort of everything goes your way and actually you start to see some sort of more meaningful materials coming down like based on sort of where commodities are today and sort of where you think housing starts are likely to sort of come out for next year like is it what's the probability of it sort of going to zero or something negative and then thirdly just on PRS sort of what how big could that be either as a sort of percentage overall potentially or or in absolute terms thank you

Okay, I think I'm going to try and just zip through those three myself. Down valuations, we touched on that. Down valuations are at very low levels. So, I mean, I haven't got figures in front of me in terms of, say, two years ago compared to today. But I'd be pretty certain that down valuations today are not higher than they were two years ago. So I think that the banks are approaching it in a very sensible way. They clearly have got criteria and lending criteria and so on. But I think also that the market is approaching it in a sensible way and that people are not saying, well, I can believe I can achieve this price. I mean, we are putting in a higher level of incentives and net prices are clearly falling. So we're not seeing down valuations as being a feature at all. We're not going to get drawn into speculation on build cost inflation. I mean, I do feel it's an area that over the last three or four years, every single time we've announced we've guided on build cost inflation, I don't think that we've been far wide of the mark in terms of our guidance on build cost inflation. But we definitely do see that inflation is falling. So 5%, we believe, is a good guide for FY24 inflation. And we'll update on that as we move through the year. Stephen touched on the mix between materials and labour. I think there's generally most of the focus tends to be on materials. But we've probably found that labour has been a little bit more sticky. And Stephen touched on that in terms of what was agreed for a lot of the trades at 8%. So it clearly has been a bit more sticky than we might have expected. So it's both sides of that equation that lead into the 5%. And then on PRS, we're going to push it as hard as is reasonable, subject to sensible pricing and so on. But we've put guidance in the market at 750 completions for the current year. We clearly have a lot of activity in the PRS area. And again, we'll just update on both what's happened from a reservations point of view and what our guidance is for FY24 and eventually for FY25.

Thank you. Amigala from Citi. Just a few clarifications from me. The first one was on the land bank margin that Gregor asked you. Just to confirm, does the PRS deals are also the discount that you apply to that? Is that also baked into your embedded cross-margin assumptions, or is it ex-PRS that we're talking about? The second one was just in terms of all that you've talked about in the land market. From a timing perspective, what are the key milestones that you're looking ahead for you to meaningfully participate back into the land market? Is it more in terms of land values, or is it maybe more confirmation from the demand side of where the market sits? And the last one, just on nutrient neutrality, once it is in legislation, how long do you think would council's local authorities take to get back in terms of offering planning on those plots which are stalled to an extent?

Okay, thank you. So Mike will cover about margin in the land bank and the impact in terms of PRS. So I think in terms of the land market and us going back into the land market I mean, I know it's sort of obvious, but the challenge for us is that we've got really kind of three things that we need to know to buy land. We need to know the rate of sale. We need to have some view in terms of pricing and pricing trends. And we need to understand costs. And I think we're in a situation now where the cost environment looks more stable than it has done for a period of time. So that's good. the rate of sale has fluctuated hugely in the last 12 months. That's not something that we've seen for a decade. So these sort of movements from 0.6 to 0.3 are very, very problematic when we look at buying land and what we should be factoring in from a land point of view. So I think we need a longer period of stability in terms of the rates of sale. And I think pricing... From October 22 and some of the estimates that were in the market in October 22 in terms of double-digit pricing falls, I think pricing has been a bit more stable than we might have expected, but rates of sale have been more volatile. So I think we need more consistency. So in the short term, what we're focused on is where we have particular challenges around our land bank, and that will tend to be individual divisions that are particularly short of land. And most of that, to just move on to the second question, most of that has been to do with nutrient neutrality. started on the south coast of England, and therefore our Southampton division has been particularly challenged regarding land availability. So that's an example of a division where we're just looking very carefully at how we can help them. One of the ways that we helped them initially, Stephen helped them, was just to give them a site that was further away and say, well, you'll just have to travel further. But it was helpful of them, I felt. So practically, we had to do that kind of thing because you can't bring land through planning in the area. And therefore, having that flexibility in our portfolio is very helpful and allows them to still generate completions from the division. In terms of nutrient neutrality, I think if I could turn it into calendar years, just to make it simple... If you assume that the changes go through Parliament, which is outlined, that's not a done deal, so we have to wait and see. And you started from the beginning of 2024, any effect in the market will be the second half of 2025. So you've got to get the site through planning, you've got to then start on site and do the enabling works and the initial ground works and then you've got to start selling. So really second half of 25 is going to be the earliest that there would be an impact and clearly it will release thereafter.

And then coming back to the land bank margin, Amy, so that margin includes everything that we can see in the land bank at the end of June, so it's the 10-year mix as we're committed to PRS on sites or the affordable mix that we've got in place, so that's all reflected in that margin. I mean, look, just to give a bit more colour on that, I guess, we sort of flagged a 600 basis point reduction in that margin, and that's clearly coming into the P&L next year. I think there are three buckets which are broadly equal in that 600 basis point movement. So the first is the net impact of inflation across both sales pricing and build costs. The second then is the sort of volume drop through and the fixed cost leverage that we touched on. And then the third is site mix. So we can see some of the sites are coming through in the histogram at lower margins. So the mix of delivery in the year is probably a third of the contributor to that as well.

Can I have a quick follow-up? Of course. Just one in terms of what you said on nutrient neutrality and to some extent potentially land deals could improve as we look forward into next year once the nutrient neutrality issues are resolved. Does that help your Gladman business to an extent?

Yeah, I mean, well, I think yes. I would say that most of the help to the Gladman business will be simply people coming back into the land market. Gladman has a large portfolio of sites, many of which are going to be successful through the planning system, either already have achieved planning or will achieve planning in 24. So that will be the main thing for the Gladman business, is just the land market starting to move again more freely.

John Bell from Deutsche Bank. I think we've got three. The first one's around incentives. What are they currently running at? Have you had any pushback from the lenders so far? And do you have any further scope to raise incentives? The second one is around Partex. I think you gave us the 11% number for FY23. I'm guessing that number's running at quite a bit higher level, but perhaps you could just give us that number. And then finally, could you give us the operating result of Gladman in FY23?

Okay. So if I pick up on incentives and then Mike will pick up in terms of Part X and the operating position in terms of Gladman. So just in terms of incentives, I mean, first of all, most of the homes that we sell are sold subject to a mortgage approval. And therefore, the mortgage approval takes us into the rules and the conduct in terms of the Council of Mortgage Lenders, which was something that came around in 2008, 2009. And that sets out the level of incentives, cash and non-cash, that can be provided in relation to the sale of a home. So everyone in the market operates on that basis. And it's broadly that cash incentives can be up to 5%. Non-cash incentives will tend to run at around 1%. Non-cash incentives being, for example, carpets or the provision of wardrobes and so on. Overall, we've said that our incentives are around 6%. And therefore, there isn't a lot of scope to increase incentives. Now, that's obviously on a group-wide basis. And we also count part exchange as part of our incentive costs. So that's clearly outwith those parameters. And equally, that isn't a uniform position across the country. So Stephen touched on in the presentation that we've seen stronger results in certain parts of the country and therefore inevitably incentives, for example, in the Midlands will be lower than incentives in London. But that's broadly the position. So not a lot of scope at a group level in terms of an increase on incentives.

So if I pick up on Part X first, John, I think the usage has ticked up very slightly since July, so maybe 1% or 2% up on the 11th. But if you look at it in the historical context, actually, that's still below the sort of long run average that we would have been seeing pre-pandemic. So we still think it's a level that's, you know, is manageable in the business. And we've got people very focused on moving that stock through. So, you know, as I said, only a third of the committed plots were unsold at the balance sheet date. So we're very focused on moving that through. And in terms of Gladman, when we acquired Gladman, we said that was going to be a long-term play, right? So that was a business that we bought for the medium to long term. And obviously in the current land environment, they've had a tough year. And that's what we would have expected. But they were still profitable. So you'll have seen sort of buried in the depths of the statement an operating profit of $4 million for Gladman for the year. which, to be honest, against the backdrop they were operating in, I think is a pretty creditable result. And overall, we're still very confident in the future of that business, and we think it still strategically is going to be a really good thing for us to own as we move forward.

Thanks very much. Charlie Campbell at Liberum. Just two. They're both quite short, I think. So the bill costs inflation at 5%, and sorry to come back to this. Is that a like-for-like number, or does that include some Part F and L and O and S stuff as well? and if so, what's that as part of the five? And then secondly, I may be reading too much into it. David, you said in your comments that you were helping customers to find good mortgages. Is that just through the normal course of business, introducing to intermediaries, or is there something else that's going on that we'd be interested to hear about?

Fine. Okay. So... Mike, do you want to pick up in terms of the 5% build cost inflation? Yeah. In terms of the mortgages, I think it's really two things. I mean, I think it's, we just touched on incentives. It's what's the combination that we can give to the customer in terms of the introduction to the normal market? financial advisor but also what can we do in terms of incentives because we can clearly provide cash incentives we can provide non-cash incentives we can do deposit matching so there's a whole series of things that we can do for the customer So it's very much looking at what is the best position for the customer. And as Stephen and Mike both touched on, clearly there has been a step up in terms of part exchange. And part exchange is a very, very powerful tool for many customers. The ability for us to buy their house and them to buy our house clearly means that the whole subject of the chain and the challenges around the chain are then eliminated, and therefore it's very, very important from a consumer in that regard.

And Charlie, just on a measure of inflation, that is like for like, so that's not including the floss. That goes into the sort of cost estimates that go into the margin, so that's baked in separately to bill cost inflation directly. It's a spot-to-spot measure.

Okay, back to Alison.

Alistair Stewart, Shell Capital. A couple of questions. First of all, it's probably too early to say, but typically the autumn market, selling market picks up quickly. Roundabout now, have you seen any indication of market conditions changing? And secondly, it's more of a broad question on housing associations. They're under pressure in a whole range of ways. Who knows, maybe RAC included. But I read a report recently that said they changed, in general, they changed their emphasis from new build to improving the existing stock. Is that changing the dynamics for you in any way in terms of Section 106 or just appetite among the housing associations?

Okay, Alistair, thank you. So I'll pick both of those up. I mean, the short answer to question one is no. So, you know, it's just early days and we've reported on eight or nine weeks of trading and we'll obviously update, presumably AGM time, we'll give an update in terms of trading. Housing associations, I would say that for some housing associations, not all, they've got two particular areas. One is the upgrading of existing stock, as you touch on, and that is a challenge that affects most housing associations. And the government have made it very clear to the housing associations that they need to treat that as a priority. And there is clearly, for some housing associations, significant cash requirements to achieve that. And that will vary. And therefore, part of our responsibilities there are really to understand the position on a housing association by housing association basis. And that's something that Stephen and the team are clearly very focused on. And the second part of it, again, for some housing associations, are outflows relating to external wall systems. And again, for some housing associations, that is a very significant cash requirement. So I think what we would see would be that the appetite for housing associations to undertake private development or purchase additional properties housing stock is very much on a case by case basis but the positive is that there are plenty of housing associations out there who are actively looking for more Section 106 or for other housing stock, perhaps private stock that can be converted through grant funding. And as I say, Stephen and the team are really looking at that carefully. Stephen, do you want to make a comment?

Yeah, I think the only other thing I'd add there, Alistair, is that, of course, not all Section 106 agreements are for rented. So a lot of Section 106 is shared ownership. That's determined at percentage of market value, typically 80% of market value, so it doesn't really impact the Section 106. It's more like David said, self-build programmes, buying land, buying development themselves, that is impacted more than Section 106 agreements.

Thanks, Alastair. Clyde, I'm coming to you once the mic gets there.

Thank you, David. Clyde Lewis at Peel Hunt. I think, unbelievably, I've still got four. Regional offices, can you just remind us how many you've got and what your current thoughts are with regards to that structure, given the lower volumes, given historically most businesses have said 500 to 600 is an optimum size. So I'm just thinking around the numbers that you've got there. The second one was on land prices, again, beyond nutrient neutrality, because obviously that's only in certain regions of the country. Why do you think land prices haven't fallen more so far? Knight Frank, we're talking about a bigger fall than the Savills number, so there's already probably a bit of discussion going on in the industry. CMA, nobody's mentioned it today. Land banking, we've all been around here a long time and seen enough reviews on that. But I was more thinking around the sort of site management factor that they raised earlier. Do you think that could potentially come back to the industry and cause a little bit of an issue, probably not with the scale of cladding, but just wanted your view on that. And then lastly, coming back, I think it was on Ainsley's question around sort of government support. I completely agree with you. The industry has got a supply-side issue, not a demand-side issue, but the election is going to be autumn next year. Coming through with supply-side policies... aren't going to benefit the current Tory government. So if they're going to pull a lever, it'll be on a demand side one. And if it's not helped to buy, have you got any other ideas as to what they might come through with?

Okay, Clive, thank you. So I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to sort of talk through all four of those points, but then I'll ask Stephen to expand a bit in terms of the land market and maybe a little bit what we're seeing in terms of the market, just in relation to the point about land prices. So in terms of divisional offices, as you know, house builders do things differently. So some of us call divisional offices divisions, and some of us call them regions. But just to be clear, we have 29 divisional offices, and sitting above that, we have six regions. And you know, we're very conscious of the cost structure and we're clearly very aware of the cost structure of the business and the kind of step costs that we have in relation to opening a division or in relation to the closure of a division. One of the things that we're very, very keen to try to do is to protect capacity. You know, we believe that the market will recover, that we can see transaction volumes increase again quite rapidly potentially, and we do want to do everything that we can to maintain capacity. So at this point in time, we're not looking at any changes to the divisional office structure. We touched on the fact that we have a recruitment freeze and we are bringing the headcount down. And I do consider that a 6% movement in the headcount is a significant movement in the headcount over a relatively short period of time, essentially over a nine-month window. And I think that that is right to continue to operate in that way. And we need to just monitor how we go in terms of demand. And I think as we touched on earlier, In terms of quarterly demand over the last 12 months we've seen quarterly demand as low as 0.3 and as high as 0.6 something and that in my view is not an environment in terms of trying to look at what is the right size and what we need is a period of stability and then we can look at do we hold the capacity and so on. I mean that I think is key. I mean, land prices, I suppose it's the classic of, you know, things aren't necessarily going down because there are different drivers. I think if you look at what's happened in terms of rate of sale and house prices, you would have expected a more rapid correction in terms of land prices. However, first of all, there is very low transaction levels in the market and And Stephen was talking the other day about the sort of difference in the view of Knight, Frank and Savills. But the reality is they're all trying to perm movements off a relatively small transaction volume. So I think that creates quite a bit of distortion in terms of pricing. But why pricing, I would say, is being held up is because... 140,000 plots, even if you assume that that had all accumulated evenly over a four-year period, but actually in truth it's been very back-end loaded because the 74 local authorities on nutrient neutrality only came in last year, so therefore it's been very back-end loaded. That will have a significant effect on pricing in the market, for one. And then secondly, I touched on the presentation in terms of the way that planning numbers have reduced. So there is just simply a shortage of land with planning, and therefore you're seeing the land market behave slightly differently to the way that you would expect. And I'll ask Stephen to comment on that in a moment. In terms of the CMA, the short answer is no, I don't see that the subject of the management of public open space will become a large industry-wide issue. We've been very clear with the CMA that historically the house builders would have expected the local authorities to adopt the public open space and you can look at the history of it pre-2008 and post-2008 and you can see that there's been a stark change in terms of the way that the local authorities view public open space. So I think the CMA see this as being an issue, but I think if you read their interim report, which they published 10 days ago, I don't think they're saying it's a house building issue. I think they're saying they recognise that there isn't an adoption of public open space that there may have been previously. And generally, we've had, and I know many other house builders have had a number of meetings with the CMA, and I think it's all been reasonably positive, and we we saw the interim report largely as being helpful. And I think it pointed very clearly at planning being a major challenge for everyone. And then in terms of government support, as I touched on earlier, I think most of our focus with government is on the supply side. I mean, government understand how the market is moving. and they clearly understand that the first-time buyer is materially disadvantaged in terms of the current backdrop. I think both major parties see that housing is very, very central to the policy agenda, but clearly they have to make their own decisions about what they do with regard to demand-side support, and no doubt in due course we'll understand what decisions are made. Stephen, do you want to maybe just talk about land market?

Yeah, just add a bit around what you were saying. David, I agree. I mean, land, certainly interesting dynamics going on at the moment. On one hand, as David says, you've got the shortage of land being created because of the planning vacuum and difficulties in obtaining planning permission and the nutrient neutrality issues which are pushing it on one hand. On the other hand, the builders have got the bill cost inflation, the sales incentive, the slower selling rates which are pushing land prices down. It was interesting, as I said to David last week, I think the Savills rate was a 4.4% reduction from 12 months, and Knight Frank were 14.6%. But speaking to them, it's based on very, very low levels of transactions. And at the moment, there's very, very few people in the land market. There's very little land going through. So I think that is sort of certainly exaggerating some of the differences. But the general view is there's a bit of a hump in land prices moving up from 21 to 22, and generally land is back to where it was at the back end of 21, mid-21. Some of the major landowners are saying they're not going to take land out to the market in the current conditions. Those who don't need to sell it, the legacy landowners are saying we'll have to wait until 2024 before we launch our sites to the market. So I don't think it's going to change that much in the next six months either.

John Fraser Andrews, HSBC. Three for me, please. First one, if we can just come back to bill costs and appreciate, David, you don't want to be drawn on speculating sort of where that's going. But the 5%, could I ask you to provide a spot rate, so an exit rate in June or a beginning rate starting this year? So where that is, so that will help us just see how you're seeing that 5% will pan out over the year. And within that, Stephen, within that spot rate, Stephen gave that the materials labor splits for the FY23. Perhaps we could have that as well. Second, on house prices, I think, Stephen, you said west and central. I assume that was England regions and also Scotland were outperforming the just over 6% house price growth in FY23. London was underperforming. Could we have an update on any regional picture for current trading? And then thirdly, incentives, the 3%, the 6%. Can we just have an evolution of those incentive levels? So you've been some very different quarterly trading reservation levels. So just how the incentives have oscillated in the specific different market conditions. Thank you.

Okay, I think I'm going to sort of pick up those myself. In terms of incentive levels, I think that the evolution of the incentive levels broadly was very fast from September 22. So we operated, I'm pretty sure we would have been published incentive levels for the year to June 22 would have been between 2% and 3%, somewhere in that order. bear in mind that the final quarter of 22 calendar 22 we traded and i think we were pretty much in line with the industry we traded at 0.3 so if you're trading at 0.3 you're going to pull every lever you can so i think the industry pulled the incentive lever very rapidly in that quarter and therefore we came into the year at calendar year 23 with incentive running probably close to that six percent level So that will be first thing. In terms of house prices, well, given what we just talked about in terms of incentive levels, I mean, I think we've generally seen a reversal of trends. I mean, I referred in the opening that, you know, the first six months and the second six months were two very different pictures. When you're looking at a market where it is more challenging... then I would say London and Southern is more challenging, particularly driven through affordability. So more pressure in terms of incentives, as talked about earlier, incentive levels are not consistent across the country, and more pressure in terms of rates of sale. And then in terms of spot rates, I mean, no, I think is the short answer. We're not going to get into spot rates on labour and spot rates on materials. Because the reality is that isn't how it's flowing through our work in progress and through our P&L. I mean, as Stephen talked about, there's a lag effect. The lag effect will affect different materials and different labour. So I could tell you the spot rate on material X... was minus 10 or plus 3 but ultimately we've got to provide the guidance in terms of how it's going to flow through the P&L. So we're seeing that 5% is a good measure at this point in time but obviously we're not running the business on spot rates. And I would just reiterate the fact that labour has definitely been more sticky than we would have expected. And Stephen said, which I think is a fair guide in general terms, that we're on a 60-40 split. So the labour component has definitely been more sticky than we would have expected.

Just come back on the incentives, please. David, that's clear on Q4 calendar, Q4-22. Then did things improve in your third quarter? So calendar Q1, did incentives come down and then they picked up again possibly in Q4 and remained at similar levels in current trading?

I'm slightly concerned that you've got a copy of our management accounts. Yeah, I mean, look, because I think it comes into the rate of sale. So when you look at the rate of sale in calendar 22Q4, we were at 0.3. But when you look at the rate of sale in Q1 of 23, we were back at close to 0.6. So inevitably, people took their foot off in terms of incentives. And then Q4, Q2, Q4 financial year, Q2, again, the market started to get more difficult and people lifted incentive levels again. So I think when you're in that sort of granular level in terms of our financial year, then Q2 and Q4 of our financial year would have looked quite similar. and probably Q1 and Q3 would have looked quite similar. Thank you. Okay. I've made a mental note to publish weekly accounts. Right. No, I really appreciate the time from everyone, the questions. So thank you very much for coming along. And we will be back with a trading statement, as I said, round about our AGM. Thank you very much.