Construction Sector Deal

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for early sight of the statement. It is welcome that there is a sector deal for construction, although the promised “a few weeks” from last November have become nine months.

Like last week’s nuclear deal statement, this appears to be a series of reannouncements of previous ministerial policies. The announcement about reducing emissions, although welcome, would be more credible if it were not so starkly at odds with other Government policies, such as last week’s cancellation of the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon. The steel, retail and rail industries are still awaiting responses to the proposals that they made last September. Perhaps the Minister will tell us when other sector deals will be agreed.

The collapse of Carillion of course caused at least some of the delay in today’s announcement, but that in turn was caused by the Government’s own lack of oversight, so what assurances will the Minister give to the sector that there will be no more Carillions, and that suppliers and workers can have confidence that Government will support them on Government-funded contracts? And what in this deal will address the concerns around late payment and retentions that the Carillion fiasco highlighted, with 30,000 suppliers owed £2 billion? What was changed during the review of this sector deal from what was announced last year? There appears to be nothing to tackle the problems endemic in public sector construction procurement.

The commitments in this sector deal on productivity and the speed of building are welcome, but they need to be matched by a significant increase in Government investment in infrastructure and house building projects. That is how we can properly support the construction industry. The TUC has shown that the £31 billion through the national productivity fund increases public investment to 2.9% of GDP, whereas the average spent on investment by leading industrial nations in the OECD is higher, at 3.5%. Labour is committed to a national transformation fund of £250 billion of capital investment over 10 years. Comparing those figures, we have to question whether the Government’s commitment to investment is meaningful. Similarly, the rhetoric about skills and technical education is welcome, but can the Minister give the sector an assurance that those skills will be developed to enable the radical transformation of construction that this country desperately needs?

There are great concerns about the exploitation of construction workers, often by the use of bogus self-employment, and the abuses of human rights and risks to the safety of too many workers through the behaviour of some unscrupulous employers. What are the Government’s plans to protect workers through this deal?

The deal appears to ignore the important role played by smaller firms. What is in the deal for small builders, for whom accessing investment in new technology is likely to be a challenge?

This week’s Jaguar Land Rover announcement that it might move production out of the UK and re-evaluate its planned £80 billion of investment is deeply worrying, not least for the 40,000 workers directly employed. JLR’s is just the latest in a string of warnings from manufacturers vital to the success of British industry, and the same warnings apply in construction and throughout the construction supply chain. The Government’s mishandling of Brexit makes a mockery of their industrial strategy; they must listen to businesses and place workers and our economy ahead of ideology.

[Richard Harrington]

I thank the shadow spokesman for taking us on a wider canter through industrial strategy and mentioning Brexit. I will try to answer his questions, but I will also do my best to stick to the sector deal, Mr Speaker, as I know you would like to make progress.

I make no excuses about the time this has taken because we wanted to get it right. We are always pressed on occasions like this to use words and phrases like “soon”, “imminently” and “at the end of the year”.

[Bill Esterson]

A few weeks?