The review, commissioned by the Labour Party, will look at constructing a realistic blueprint for building 200,000 new homes by 2020 to address the severe housing crisis in the UK.
Others, however, have criticised Ed Miliband's claim that they are hoarding land for profit.
James Hulme, strategic policy adviser to the HBA, a division of the National Federation of Builders (NFB) said the review is not only welcome, it is crucial.
He added:
“The housing and housebuilding issue has moved up the agenda because it is in crisis, a fact recognised by all the main political parties which needs robust practical solutions. The HBA has been saying for some time that the Government’s Help to Buy initiative is welcome and has created demand, but there is a vital need to match this with supply.
Fewer than half the homes that are needed in the UK are actually being built, and we need to urgently look at the barriers to building new homes. These include the many barriers faced by small and medium-sized (SME) developers and house builders who are a key part of the solution, alongside the largest developers, as SME builders can work to create and strengthen local communities and local economies.
We hope that the commission will be thorough and holistic in its recommendations which should address financial barriers to growth as well as the prohibitive planning processes and costs that disproportionately affect smaller house builders in their efforts to build much needed homes.”
Julia Evans, chief executive of the NFB, one of the experts to sit on the commission, added:
“I am delighted to be on the panel. There is a shared sense of endeavour and a commitment to the task of examining the evidence and working together to advise Sir Michael Lyons on practical proposals for how we can build more homes, but homes that are fit for purpose, both in terms of quality and impact on the environment. The Labour Party has posed a number of key questions which we will be looking into during the course of the review, based on evidence and our experience.”
Not all in the housebuilding industry were welcoming of Mr Miliband’s speech yesterday.
The Labour leader warned that home shortages and rising house prices means many developers see more profit to be made from land speculation than from constructing the new homes needed if Britain is to be better off in the future.
He committed the next Labour government to giving communities new “use it or lose it” powers to release land that is sometimes being hoarded by developers even though it has planning permission or has been set aside to build upon.
But some in the industry said plots are built on as soon as planning permission is secured, and argued that the 557 per cent increase in profits among the nation's four biggest housebuilders this year comes from a very low base following the financial crisis.
Pete Redfern, chief executive of Taylor Wimpey, said:
"The industry is only just returning to the point where it is meeting its cost of capital following the most prolonged downturn in housing history. The comparison used for profitability is against a point where many in the industry were loss making, so a percentage improvement is rather meaningless."
Redfern strongly rejected the Labour leader's accusation that housebuilders are hoarding land.
"We continue to start all sites as soon as possible once an implementable planning permission is received. Taylor Wimpey specifically and the industry as a whole have only a tiny percentage of sites that have a planning permission, where construction has not been started."
A spokesman for the Home Builders' Federation (HBF), the industry's trade body, added:
"Developers don't land bank, all the evidence is there. As soon as developers get a planning permission they want to start on site. Developers are not land hoarders."
The HBF said the industry would work with Michael Lyons to improve understanding of the issues.
"We are looking to work with the Lyons Commission to help them understand the complexity of housing delivery going forward."
