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.
8 comments:
It's a rotten time for builders over this next month or so anyway! Tenders must be floored because ofconcerns about all the issues construction gets under crushing new Labour taxes, and noone in their right mind is going to take on new staff until well into the new year, even if the work is forthcoming! The whole business stops for a fortnight anyway!
Commercial experience in this awful government is non-existent, so Crayons' 1.5million houses are yet another example of complete failure and a fantasy!
How to destroy a civilisation ... in real time. And we have the best seats to watch it from.
TFFT. It might reduce the number of those new-build lifespan-of-a-mortgage monstrosities they've been inflicting on us on perfectly good farm land.
Scrobs - Crayons did well to get out of that 1.5million houses nonsense, she was probably saddled with it as a guaranteed fail anyway.
James - yes the best seats, but lessons won't be learned, they never are.
Jannie - that could be a useful outcome, may as well be optimistic about it.
"new-build lifespan-of-a-mortgage"
The slums of tomorrow, today.
djc - many new apartment blocks give that impression, not intended to take anyone into a desirable long term future.
And this must rattle back to the manufacturers of construction equipment. JCB, rugged truck manufacturers, all the other odd stuff you see on building sites. Even hard hat, protective boots, gloves, manufactures and the like.
Well done Surkier. The task of sinking the value of UK assets ready for a fire sale to his WEF masters is back on track.
Doonhamer - yes, it's a level of incompetence which shouts hidden agenda. Not particularly well hidden and more like the outcome of an upper echelon culture, but many voters don't appear to see it.
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