CBI wants government to spend more on construction projects

The CBI is urging the Chancellor to use next month’s Budget to speed up public sector building in order to support the construction industry and safeguard jobs.

Unveiling its Budget submission today, the CBI says it welcomed the announcement in November’s Pre-Budget Report that £3billionn of capital spending was to be brought forward from 2010/11, and recent measures announced to safeguard infrastructure investment, including financial support for PFI projects.

However the CBI is calling for plans to freeze public sector capital spending at the 2010/11 level to be reversed and the previous policy of holding net public investment at 2.25% of GDP re-established.
CBI Deputy-Director General John Cridland said: “A strong economy requires fit-for-purpose schools, hospitals, communications and transport. A failure to maintain and renew the nation’s essential infrastructure would be short-sighted.”

John McDonough, CBI Construction Council Chairman, added: “We need to see action on the ground to get public sector projects moving quickly as delays put jobs at risk...A strong and influential Chief Construction Officer would have a major impact on navigating the procurement maze and the bureaucratic delays that so often beset projects.

Among the measures the CBI is proposing are:

• The reversal of recent decisions adding to business costs and threatening jobs, including delaying the planned rise in employer National Insurance Contributions due in 2011 and smoothing out the volatility of impending rises in business rates

• Making better use of public sector spending by modernising public services to ensure they deliver both quality and value for money.

• Temporary measures to stimulate demand for low-carbon goods and boost consumer and business spending, including a scrapping scheme for cars, vans and domestic appliances

• Fast-tracking support for the unemployed through Jobcentre Plus and making the new more flexible Train to Gain programme available to all employers.

• Reducing the impact of the recession on the current generation of graduates and improving skills base, by introducing a temporary subsidy for master’s degree courses in science, technology, engineering and maths