{"id":25807,"date":"2020-03-27T16:29:52","date_gmt":"2020-03-27T16:29:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ihbconline.co.uk\/newsachive\/?p=25807"},"modified":"2020-03-27T16:29:52","modified_gmt":"2020-03-27T16:29:52","slug":"ihbcs-covid-19-signpost-1-budget-and-covid-19-via-dbw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=25807","title":{"rendered":"IHBC\u2019s COVID-19 signpost 1: Budget and COVID 19, via DBW"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-25808\" src=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/budget_briefcase_DBW.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/>On 11 March 2020, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, presented his budget to parliament and, coming in the wake of the Coronavirus outbreak, it offered a package of measures to support the economy, all reviewed below <em>via<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.designingbuildings.co.uk\/wiki\/Home\">Designing Buildings Wiki<\/a> (DBW), the platform for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.designingbuildings.co.uk\/wiki\/Conservation_wiki\">IHBC\u2019s Conservation Wiki<\/a>.<\/h3>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>DBW writes:<\/p>\n<p>The budget itself was also dominated by last-minute changes in response to Covid-19. \u00a330bn of temporary emergency measures included:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Statutory sick pay for those advised to self-isolate.<\/li>\n<li>Suspension of business rates for firms in the retail, leisure and hospitality sectors with a rateable value below \u00a351,000.<\/li>\n<li>A \u00a3500m hardship fund to help vulnerable people in their areas.<\/li>\n<li>A coronavirus business interruption loan scheme.<\/li>\n<li>The government will meet the costs of coronavirus statutory sick pay for businesses with fewer than 250 employees.<\/li>\n<li>Those on in-work benefits will be able to claim from day one if they become ill.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Other announcements with an impact on the construction industry included:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Housing and infrastructure: \u2018If the country needs it, we will build it\u2019.<\/li>\n<li>A \u00a327 billion investment in strategic roads between 2020 and 2025.<\/li>\n<li>Funding for a Shared Rural Network agreement to improve mobile coverage in rural areas.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a35.2 billion for flood defences between 2021 and 2027.<\/li>\n<li>A \u00a310.9 billion increase in housing investment to support the commitment to build at least 1 million new homes by the end of the Parliament.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a31.5 billion over five years to refurbish further education colleges.<\/li>\n<li>A further \u00a39.5 billion for the Affordable Homes Programme.<\/li>\n<li>An additional \u00a31 billion to remove unsafe cladding from residential buildings above 18 metres.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Environment:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Infrastructure Fund to establish CCS in at least two UK sites, one by the mid-2020s, a second by 2030.<\/li>\n<li>Investment in electric vehicle charging infrastructure, to ensure drivers are never more than 30 miles from a rapid charging station.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a3532 million of consumer incentives for ultra-low emission vehicles, and reduced taxes on zero emission vehicles.<\/li>\n<li>Scrapping tax relief on read diesel from April 2022.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a3304 million to help local authorities reduce nitrogen dioxide emissions and improve air quality.<\/li>\n<li>Introducing a Plastic Packaging Tax.<\/li>\n<li>Planting enough trees to cover an area the size of Birmingham.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Other:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A new \u00a32.5 billion National Skills Fund to improve adult skills.<\/li>\n<li>Reviewing the Green Book, which sets out how decisions on major investment programmes are appraised, to make sure government investment spreads across the UK.<\/li>\n<li>Plans to increase public R&amp;D investment to \u00a322 billion per year by 2024-25.<\/li>\n<li>It had been expected that the budget would be accompanied by the publication of a National Infrastructure Strategy, but the budget simply stated that this would be published \u2018later in the Spring\u2019.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Ref https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/budget-2020-documents<\/p>\n<p><strong>Reaction<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Julie Hirigoyen, chief executive at UKGBC said: \u2018Unfortunately, notably absent from the budget documents are the Government\u2019s three biggest manifesto promises on energy efficiency: The social housing decarbonisation fund, Home Upgrade Grants and the Public Sector Decarbonisation scheme.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Brian Berry, chief executive at the Federation of Master Builders said: \u2018Understandably, the chancellor has delivered a \u2018first aid Budget\u2019 to overcome the short-term crisis caused by Covid-19. But he has missed an important opportunity to announce interventions that would support the sustainable, long-term recovery construction needs.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Steve Radley, CITB Policy Director said: \u2018The promised investment will create the need for tens of thousands more workers in Britain\u2019s construction sector. This will require a major upturn in the number of apprentices and trainees; government will need to work closely with industry to deliver this. The huge pipeline of work will provide a unique opportunity for government to drive modernisation in how we build, encouraging the adoption of Modern Methods of Construction that will improve productivity in a much tighter labour market.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Eddie Tuttle, director for policy, research &amp; public affairs at the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) said: \u2018Given today\u2019s Budget announcements we encourage government to work closely with the construction industry in order to produce a clearer vision and a smarter, more focussed, attention from policy makers to ensure the industry continues to thrive in a more conducive environment.\u2019<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.designingbuildings.co.uk\/wiki\/Budget_2020\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Read more&#8230;.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 11 March 2020, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, presented his budget to parliament and, coming in the wake of the Coronavirus outbreak, it offered a package of measures to support the economy, all reviewed below via Designing &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=25807\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ihbc-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25807"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25809,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25807\/revisions\/25809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}