Government

A senior Mace executive is looking to swap construction for legislation by standing as a Labour candidate in the forthcoming general election. Mike Reader, global lead for winning work in Mace’s consulting arm, is hoping to get elected in the key battleground of Northampton South. Reader has worked at Mace…

Major contractors have called for a clear focus on construction during the campaign period that began with yesterday’s announcement of a general election on 4 July. Prime minister Rishi Sunak caught many political commentators by surprise by calling voters to the ballot box six months before the end of the…

Civils contractors have welcomed reports that a future Labour administration would merge the government’s two main infrastructure delivery bodies. In an interview with the Financial Times, Darren Jones, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said his party plans to bring the functions of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority and the…

The Labour Party will create a taskforce to choose sites for a generation of new towns to be announced within a year if it is elected, according to the party’s deputy leader Angela Rayner. Rayner told delegates at the UKREiiF property conference in Leeds that independent experts will be appointed…

NHS trusts’ confidence in the government’s £20bn new hospitals pledge is “on increasingly shaky ground” due to funding delays, a health leader has told Construction News. Trust leaders are concerned schemes in the New Hospital Programme (NHP) will be scaled back or delayed beyond the 2030 deadline, as many are…

Scottish ministers have been given the power to directly commission remediation work on dangerous cladding without owners’ permission. On Tuesday (14 May) the Scottish Parliament unanimously approved the Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Bill. The new law will give building owners seven days’ notice of ministers’ intention to carry out work.…

The UK has ratified an agreement to join a global trade bloc, a move the government claims could boost construction output by £119m a year. The UK will be the twelfth member of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which includes Japan, Australia and Canada. The countries…

Delay in implementing changes to the infrastructure system has hit the UK’s net-zero ambitions, the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) has said. In its latest annual review, published this week, the commission warned that the sluggish UK roll-out of heat-pumps – caused by increased uncertainty around the system – was holding…

Ducking out of big infrastructure decisions in the next year could leave the UK’s regional growth plans “in jeopardy”, the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) has warned. The commission said the “window is closing” to narrow the gap between the UK and other nations around regional connectivity, in its latest annual…

MPs have warned that the government lacks the skills to estimate project costs, leaving it “too reliant” on supply chain partners to price its biggest infrastructure schemes. Government departments are agreeing funding packages before proposals are sufficiently developed, a cross-party inquiry into the government’s major infrastructure projects concluded. It cited…