Spending Review Construction Exclusive

Spending Review Construction Exclusive: The Chancellor confirms to Glenigan that construction “will be satisfied” with capital spending plans.

Ahead of the spending review this Wednesday, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, who was speaking to Glenigan’s Content Director, Robert Davis, about capital spending last Friday said “I think you will be happy with the amount of capital investment [the Treasury] are going to be doing next year...we said we want to be ambitious around that”.

The Chancellor also confirmed to Glenigan that the Government will be publishing some long-term plans for capital-projects, with the delayed National Infrastructure Strategy being unveiled alongside the spending review.

The 30-year strategy, which was due to be published in March 2020, provides £100bn to improve transport connectivity and work towards the Government’s goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.

The strategy is also due to focus on “levelling up” disparities between the North and South, after the Treasury confirmed Sunak would be changing the department’s green book, a set of rules that determines the value of government schemes, which is said to favour London and the South East.

“On both of those, you will be satisfied” said the Chancellor.

The decision to have a one-year spending review and to defer the full, longer-term spending review to next year, whilst understandable given the immediate priority of tackling the pandemic, was initially a concern to the construction industry as it threatened to delay important capital programmes.

Rhys Gadsby, Glenigan’s Economic Analyst, welcomed the Chancellor’s commitments. “Once again, we are seeing that investment in UK Infrastructure is at the heart of the Government’s agenda.”

“It’s encouraging to hear direct commitments to ambitious capital investment over the course of this Parliament. This will help to provide Government departments and the construction industry with greater certainty and confidence to take new projects forward.”

“Construction industry growth detailed in the Glenigan Construction Industry Forecast for 2021-2022 is largely reliant on greater government investment, therefore the prospect of longer-term investment programmes accompanying the one-year review is crucial.”

The spending review is also set to include plans for a new national infrastructure bank, with the headquarters being located in the North of England. The bank will replace the work of the European Investment Bank after the UK’s transition period with the EU.

The Spending Review and National Infrastructure Strategy are due to be unveiled to the House of Commons on Wednesday from 12:30pm, and Glenigan will be publishing a detailed breakdown on what this means for the construction sector soon afterwards.

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PR contact:
Rhys Gadsby (Economic Analyst)
T: 01202 786 714 │ E: rhys.gadsby@glenigan-old.thrv.uk