Ministerial merry-go-rounds

I have been here before,
But when, or how, I cannot tell

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. What has an average lifespan of eight months, nine months, or 10 months, depending on whether you are looking back, respectively, over last past five years, 10 years or 20 years? The answer, of course, is the tenure of a UK Construction Minister.

We are now on our second person – Chris McDonald – to sit in the seat since the new Labour Government took office. Sarah Jones, McDonald’s predecessor, lasted over a year, although who’s to say how long the chap she took over from, Alan Mak, would have lasted, had the Tries not been booted out of power. Although, experience tells me that I would probably have been writing this anyway, no matter who got into power last July.

Construction is a huge, mahoosive part of the UK economy. Everywhere you look, you see evidence of stuff that’s being built, has been built, is about to be built, and alongside that, the deliveries and manufacturer of the wherewithal to actually build with. Mark Reynolds, co-chair of the Construction Leadership Council, spoke at the BMF Members Day a couple of weeks ago. Having run Tier One contactors for many years – and worked on the London Olympics – he knows a thing or two about what it takes to build our environment. So, when he tells the assembled audience of merchants and suppliers that construction relies on them and their output every single day, believe him.

So, to repeat. Construction is a massive element in the UK economy. It’s one of the things that keeps UK plc going. And yet, “construction” covers but a small part of the workload of the, er, Construction Minister. Weird, that. McDonald will also have to learn about a whole  load of exciting things including Maritime & Shipbuilding, Aerospace, the Office for Clean Energy Jobs, Steel and Carbon Leakage.

Again, Construction is a massive part of the UK economy. It turns over something like £370 billion, contributes £138 billion in value added extras to the UK economy and employs, at around 3.1 million people, 9% of the total UK workforce.

It’s ridiculous that, as a sector, construction isn’t take more seriously, especially when you think of all the add-on value that it does add. The Government will never get anywhere near its own targets unless it really starts to understand that, and act accordingly. Maybe McDonald will be the one to change things. Maybe if he gets a decent run at it he can. That said, Mark Prisk managed over two years – get that man a long-service gold clock – and we’re still where we are. There’s an excellent book by political journalist Ian Dunt, called How Westminster Works, And Why It Doesn’t, that goes into detail about how, and why, the constant churn of ministers in all departments, means very little that is promised or planned, ever actually happens. So I’m not hopeful. As long as the job of Construction Minister (see also: Housing Minister) is seen as stepping stone to other, better, more grown-up government roles, I’ll be writing this same piece again. And again.

This was all sparked by – aka, ‘stolen from’ – a LinkedIn post from the redoubtable Dr Noble Francis, economics director at the CPA, a man whose posts have inspired more of these blogs than he probably realises. Thank you Noble: Noble by name, and noble by nature. If you want to read his thoughts on the topic, which are far more insightful than mine, the original post is here.

It’s available from Amazon, but, be the better person, and buy from this link, which supports independent bookshops.