How will the new Labour government impact the construction industry?

With the new Labour government’s historic landslide victory in July and their ambitious targets for the construction sector, the next couple of years will certainly be pivotal for the future of engineering in the UK. Keir Starmer’s initial parliamentary majority of 172 has brought a stability to British politics (especially compared to the previous Conservative government’s multitude of short-lived leaders) that will likely benefit the construction industry through increased investment and market steadiness.

The chancellor Rachel Reeves has declared the construction of new housing and infrastructure as a ‘major economic focus’. This certainly seems the case with Labour making an ambitious pledge of constructing 1.5 million more houses by 2029, requiring an increase of 14% in private housebuilding by 2025. Mandatory housing targets for local authorities are planned to return and Reeves has said that the planning framework will be amended to better enable the construction of nationally significant infrastructure like roads, railways and factories.

To enable all of this proposed development, Labour have sought to accelerate construction through reforming the National Planning Policy Framework and creating a new task force to urge along stalled housing sites. Along with this, the government will hire 300 new planning officers and push through a planning and infrastructure parliamentary bill, which will remove barriers to development in the current system.

These changes are designed to help the average person find and afford a home, especially with new estates requiring a certain number of affordable houses. Furthermore, the streamlining of the planning process should increase the efficiency of construction, whether that be an extension on your home or a new train line. However, the impact on quality that this may result in remains to be seen.

Starmer’s economic changes are certainly radical, with the government gaining an extra £40 billion from taxes, and in some aspects look very favourable for Britain’s economic future. But, there are some glaring issues in the UK’s economy and Starmer’s plan for it, as critics (and there are many of them) have pointed out. The impact of these on you and I remain to be seen.

Regardless, the Labour government’s huge majority will likely provide national stability, but with the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the bleak environmental future and the rise in extremist politics globally, the rest of the world is anything but stable. Starmer is planning for this with moves to invest in domestic infrastructure and production capabilities to protect the construction industry, but in the current globalised world, supply chains are ever more vulnerable to world events. On a more positive note, inflation is at its lowest point since 2021 and the expected economic growth for 2024 is 1%, up from the predicted 0.1% in January.