Future of construction News

The CIOB Policy Team Newsletter - June 2023

Last updated: 17th July 2023

June with the CIOB Policy team

Welcome to this edition of CIOB’s policy team newsletter.

This edition includes information about our recent article on building safety published by Barbour ABI, an overview of our recent Building Up reports for Scotland, Wales and Ireland as well as our regular devolved updates.

If you have anything you would like to share, we would love to hear from you, so please do get in touch at [email protected]. 

 

One thing you need to do...Read our recent blog published by Barbour ABI on building safety

This short blog takes an opportunity to look at the current state of play and what the future holds for building safety in the UK. Read the full blog here.

 

Building Up Scotland: Professional insights from the construction sector in 2023

This report provides a snapshot of the unique aspects of Scotland's construction industry, offering valuable insights into market trends, regulatory frameworks, and future prospects. Click here to read the report. 

 

Building Up Wales: Professional insights from the construction sector in 2023

This report provides a snapshot of the unique aspects of Wales' construction industry, offering valuable insights into market trends, regulatory frameworks, and future prospects. Click here to read the report.

 

Building Up Ireland: Professional insights from the construction sector in 2023

This report provides a snapshot of the unique aspects of Ireland and Northern Ireland's construction industry, offering valuable insights into market trends, regulatory frameworks, and future prospects. Click here to read the report.

 

Devolved Nations & Ireland Overview

  • Ireland & Northern Ireland

In addition to publishing ‘Building up Ireland’ this month saw CIOB provide written briefing to the Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government on infrastructure provision and site preparation. This briefing was based on intelligence gathered during a roundtable discussing Modern Methods of Construction, which took place in April.

A summary presentation of ‘Building up Ireland’ was provided to the Dublin office of BNP Paribas research team.

We continue to be involved with MENTUP – a conglomerate of European universities developing mental health interventions for the construction sector. MENTUP’s plenary meeting took place in Albania in June, and CIOB presented remotely.

In order to provide a forum at the Global Working Group for the sharing of best practice, we are enlisting members working on significant infrastructure projects to present their work at upcoming meetings. Working with the national team in Ireland, we are in discussions with the lead team on Ireland’s new national children’s hospital with a view to their presenting their work at the next GWG meeting.

‘Flipping the Green Switch: a case for deferring stamp duty on residential retrofit’ is being presented to the Belfast Climate Commission’s finance committee this week.

  • Scotland

This month, CIOB members from across Scotland visited Scottish Parliament for the Construction Skills Roundtable, hosted by Daniel Johnson MSP. During this discussion, they raised key issues relating to the ongoing skills shortage being faced by the industry, and suggested actions that must be taken to support the industry’s ongoing efforts to build awareness of careers in the sector.

Following our CIOB Retrofit Roundtable event in May, we published an article in Scottish Construction Now outlining the challenges to widescale retrofit projects in Scotland and highlighted some of the opportunities for change.

This month, we attended the first meeting of the Scottish Government Energy Standards Review Working Group. Currently in its early stages, the CIOB will continue to feed into this discussion over the coming months.

  • Wales

As above, we recently released our Building Up Wales report. Following its publication, David Kirby has been in touch with numerous policymakers and stakeholders to discuss the report’s findings.

June also saw the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Bill receive royal assent and become an Act (notably, this was the first Act of Senedd to be signed by the King). CIOB has done a lot of work on this topic, and we were thrilled to have Wyn Harries, Deputy Chair of the Wales member hub, attend the Act’s launch event on the organisation’s behalf.

We continue to engage with Welsh Government on the development of this Act, and on 22nd June attended the first of five workshops on contractual clauses covered in the Act. This first session was on ensuring prompt payments along the supply chain, and included interesting discussions on retention payments and project bank accounts and how these should be dealt with in legislation.

 

CIOB and the Press

Key pieces of media coverage this month:

 

Coming up in July

July is a protracted month in the parliamentary calendar with MPs and Peers taking recess from 21 July to 4 September.

However, at the start of the month there are plenty of sessions to be aware of. To start off the month Baroness Deech will be posing a question in the House of Lords on the balance between the duty of local authorities to secure safe movement of traffic, and the imposition of LTNs and low emission zones. From there we will hear oral questions posed to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

We then move over to the committee halls where the Environment and Climate Change Committee will hear evidence from Lord Deben the Chair of the Climate Change Committee.

One of the most important items in the month will take place on 6 July where a general debate will take place on building safety and social housing, to mark six years since the Grenfell Tower Tragedy.

On the week approaching the summer recess we will hear oral question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, have a Westminster Hall debate relating to the use of swift bricks in new housing, hear oral evidence in the Public Accounts Committee on the condition of school buildings and have the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill enter its report stage in the House of Lords.

 

If you made it this far... read our article on using STEM to inspire a younger audience

Anne Okafor MCIOB is a Scotland-based Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) Construction Ambassador. She uses her experience and story to inspire young people toward a career within the construction industry. Read the full article here.

Thank you for reading this month’s update from the CIOB policy team. We will be back in your inbox next month with more information about what the team is up to, what is going on in Parliament and built environment news to look out for.

All the best,

The CIOB policy team

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