New Construction Products Association Chairman Focuses on Industry Competitiveness

Adrian Barden, the newly elected Chairman of the Construction Products Association, has told an audience of industry leaders, politicians and government officials that industry in the UK must remain competitive across the world to stop jobs moving to countries with lower environmental standards. He called on the government to recognise its role in reducing the burden of tax and regulation to ensure the UK remained a place where international companies wanted to invest.

Speaking to nearly 500 industry guests at the Annual Lunch of the Construction Products Association, Adrian Barden said; 'The future success of the construction products industry in this country depends on ensuring the UK is a place where the international companies that now dominate the sector want to invest. The burden of tax and regulation is increasing at a faster rate than in many other countries, and energy prices here are higher. The government needs to recognise that competition is no longer just with Europe, but between Europe and other parts of the world which have a much lower cost base.'

Barden praised the leading role that the UK is taking on addressing climate change issues, but he warned that if companies transfer their operations, or sourcing of products, to countries with lower environmental standards, the result would take jobs away from the UK or Europe, without achieving any environmental benefits.

He said; 'We must address some of the issues within our control that makes the UK a less attractive place to do business. We welcome the latest Review of Planning that was announced at the end of last month. Speeding up the process has to be good for business irrespective of the decision that is made, but government must look carefully at additional regulation, such as the proposed Community Infrastructure Levy. Do they really want to impose yet another burden on the minerals industry of this country and at the same time add further costs to many of their own infrastructure projects?'

Turning to housing, Barden welcomed the government's ambition to build 240,000 new zero carbon homes a year by 2016. But he suggested this was not achievable unless the government did more to ensure sufficient land was made available. He said; 'Do any of the major political parties have the courage to address this? Our industry needs to know sooner rather than later because we have to make the investments that will deliver the products to achieve this and those investments cannot be approved and implemented overnight.

'New build may be high profile, but what will really make a difference is what we do to improve the existing building stock. I find it staggering that a government that is so committed to addressing climate change has chosen to do so little to encourage improvement to the energy efficiency of our existing buildings. Worse still they persist in charging VAT at the full rate on energy saving products yet at a lower rate on the energy we are trying to save.'

Quoting a recent report, he highlighted that the most effective way of lifting people out of fuel poverty was not to subsidise the cost of their energy but to insulate their homes.

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Web: http://www.constructionproducts.org.uk