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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to support the civil engineering sector in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

The Government’s long-term commitment to drive productivity in the construction industry includes support for civil engineering through the UK’s National Infrastructure and Construction Pipeline, which is worth over £400bn of planned public and private investment in nearly 700 projects, programmes and other investments. This includes around £190bn to be invested by 2020/21. It is estimated the next decade will see over £600bn of public and private investments in infrastructure. The National Productivity Investment Fund (NPIF) has also been increased to £37bn and has been extended by another year until 2023-24. The NPIF is the cornerstone of the Government’s plan to boost growth in areas critical to productivity.

The investments we are making from the Construction Sector Deal to transform the sector’s productivity includes our commitment to invest £170m, matched by £250m from industry in the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) in the Transforming Construction: Manufacturing Better Buildings programme. The programme will improve productivity through promoting the development and commercialisation of digital, manufacturing, energy generation and storage technologies for the construction and built environment sectors. The Transforming Construction programme will also promote a range of R&D and demonstration projects through cross sector collaboration; and £72m will be invested in the Transforming Construction Alliance – a consortium of the Centre for Digital Built Britain, the Manufacturing Technology Centre and the Building Research Establishment to support collaboration. The sector deal will aim to create a new business model, driven by investment, and embedded throughout the UK.