黑洞社区

The infrastructure minister has called on the construction industry to work with the government to help create a 鈥渟table environment鈥� for long-term infrastructure investment.

Lord Deighton told the Government Construction Summit in London today that 鈥渃reating a stable environment鈥� for investment was the government鈥檚 most important role in construction.

He said: 鈥淭he more intelligence you can give us about how to create that stable environment the better - I think you鈥檒l find us very responsive.鈥�

In Q&A session Paul King, UK Green 黑洞社区 Council chief executive, challenged Deighton to incorporate a national plan to reduce carbon emissions in the built environment into the National Infrastructure Plan.

Deighton replied: 鈥淚鈥檓 an enormous fan of putting emissions reductions as one of our NIP projects. I鈥檇 be happy to look at that going forward.鈥�

The government will publish an update on its National Infrastructure Plan this summer with 鈥渆ven more detail鈥�, Deighton added.

He said his other priorities for construction were speeding up the planning system and 鈥渆nsuring proper finance is in place鈥�.

Deighton said this month the government would announce latest progress in achieving 15-20% cost savings on infrastructure which will show 鈥溌�3bn of annual savings鈥�.

Deighton added that he was worried about construction capacity: 鈥淢y concern at the moment is that we have the capacity to deliver this pipeline.鈥�

Deighton said: 鈥淚 think there鈥檚 an enormous amount of consensus among the political parties.

鈥淏ehind the day-to-day Punch and Judy, when you speak privately with the other parties there鈥檚 not much to distinguish us.

鈥淚t鈥檚 about effectiveness of delivery.鈥�