Labour’s chaos again

Steven Mulholland has a very interesting CAPX piece on the way UK Labour party chaos is disrupting the building industry, particularly in relation to plant hire.


Labour’s chaos is holding back Britain’s builders

• The Government's infrastructure ambitions are drifting further from reality
• Construction activity has seen its steepest fall since the pandemic
• Labour have left builders guessing on tax, skills policy and investment rules

Today’s S&P UK construction data should set alarm bells ringing in Number 10.

Construction activity across housing, commercial and civil engineering has seen its steepest fall since the pandemic, with new orders nosediving and employment declining for eleven consecutive months.

This is not a natural cooling of the market. It is the predictable consequence of a policy environment that has become more expensive, more uncertain and harder for businesses to navigate. Instead of giving firms the stability to invest, recent decisions have weakened confidence across the construction supply chain at exactly the moment Britain needs it to be firing on all cylinders.

The whole piece is well worth reading as yet another example of severe problems with a lack of relevant experience within government decision-making circles. Or, as so often seems to be the case, a complete absence of relevant experience.

This combination of rising costs and tax uncertainty has created a perfect storm. When firms cannot predict future liabilities or trust the stability of the policy environment, they pause. And that hesitation is exactly what the S&P construction data captures: falling output, shrinking order books and a sharp drop in optimism – now at its lowest point since 2022.