Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how the Construction Sector Deal funding will be disbursed; and how he plans to assess the effect of that funding on that sector.

As part of the Construction Sector Deal, £170m has been allocated through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, to support three sets of activity, Firstly, £72m for a Construction Innovation Hub, which will develop and commercialise digital and offsite manufacturing technologies. Secondly, £36m for an Active Building Centre which seeks to integrate innovative energy generation and storage technologies into buildings. Finally, £59m will be disbursed to a number of university led research and industry led R&D projects, through a series of competitions. The approach to evaluating the Programme funding is being developed. However, we will be publishing an update on the implementation of the Construction Sector Deal later this year.