22nd November 2010 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The cuts announced in the Welsh budget by Jane Hutt, Budget and Business Minster for the Welsh Assembly Government will be catastrophic for construction says the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) Wales.
Richard Jenkins, Director of FMB Wales said:
“As the large infrastructure and housing projects come to a standstill, jobs will be lost and there will be a major knock on affect for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in construction. The 21 percent cut to housing, environment and sustainability will mean Wales will no longer lead the UK on sustainable housing. Workers who are made redundant by the larger firms which would have been building new homes, schools and hospitals for Wales will look for work elsewhere and many will turn to the residential market meaning many construction SMEs will lose work and may be forced to make redundancies or worse close their business altogether.”
Jenkins continued:
"Does the Welsh Assembly Government seriously expect the private sector to provide jobs and growth when it is being squeezed in every which way by the cuts? Insolvency figures for Q3 of 2010 revealed the Welsh economic recovery was already lagging behind the rest of the UK. Now the draft budget looks set to send hundreds more businesses over the edge particularly in the construction sector, which employs almost 120,000 people in Wales."
Jenkins added:
“The Welsh Assembly Government’s refusal to allocate funding to skills and training will mean that there will be no skilled workers available when the upturn starts. This coupled with the loss of skilled workers now, as redundancies are made in construction and workers move into new areas of work, will mean that construction won’t be able to cope with demand and therefore will be unable to grow. It will be decades before construction will recover from this.”
Jenkins concluded:
“The housing crisis will worsen with communities and families badly affected; forced to live in substandard conditions or worse. Homeowners who can afford to maintain and improve their home may also suffer as the market is flooded with informal traders offering to do cash in hand jobs which, with the VAT rise due next year, will seem very appealing but may end up being a false economy.”
