The Autumn Budget is coming on 26 October, and the CECA are among the first to have submitted evidence and their wishes for the construction industry
The 2026 Autumn Budget will be the first for chancellor John Healey, and predictions have thus far been few and far between for the most part.
The Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA) has submitted a representation to HM Treasury with recommendations to help the civil engineering construction sector.
Recommendations crafted from several workshops
The CECA has held several member engagement workshops to inform these recommendations and policy positions.
They also argue that adopting the CECA’s recommendations would support the UK’s economic growth and productivity, delivering benefits to local communities and economies.
The CECA’s recommendations for the Treasury include:
- Protecting stable, long-term infrastructure investment and translating the 10-Year Infrastructure Strategy into a funded and sequenced delivery programme
- Resourcing the effective delivery of planning reforms to speed up infrastructure delivery
- Continually improving the UK Infrastructure Pipeline to provide contractors with practical, reliable, and long-term market certainty
- Urgently addressing the funding challenges in relation to skills provision across the infrastructure sector while safeguarding continuity in any reforms to the Industry Training Board system
- Supporting the speedy passage and implementation of the Commercial Payments Bill, including the prohibition of construction retentions and support for fairer payment terms
- Using the redraft of the Construction Playbook to deliver improvements in relation to early contractor involvement, the use of frameworks and to promote standard forms of contract
Not much focus on construction, as of yet
Since the Burnham government took over, there has been little mention of the construction industry or support for it.
One example is the chancellor’s Growth Speech, delivered earlier this week (7 September), in which he promised to continue devolving powers to local leaders and said judicial reviews would now cover major infrastructure, including rail infrastructure.
Since taking office, PM Andy Burnham has only briefly mentioned the industry, with his speech outside No. 10 briefly mentioning building more council houses in a “fair and sustainable” way and re-industrialising industries that haven’t recovered since the 1980’s.
At the time, Brian Berry, chief executive of the FMB, said: “With the fall in the number of new homes being built, Burnham needs to concentrate on rolling out a series of practical measures that will unlock the potential of the nation’s small builders, which should include diversifying the housing market; tackling the construction skills shortage; supporting the rollout of energy efficiency upgrades of existing homes; and creating the business conditions needed for small businesses to thrive.
Whether this, or any other issues, will be mentioned or targeted in the Autumn Budget remains to be seen, and the run-up to the budget on 28 October will likely be a time of more uncertainty for the industry as we wait with bated breath to see what’s in store.
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