The Construction Leadership Council (CLC) has had an interesting history and there was no reason to assume that the new government would maintain the same quangos as the old government. But the CLC has survived, it appears.
The CLC was set up by the coalition government to help drive its policy agenda, comprising industry representatives and government officials, with a co-chair from each side. After the Conservatives won a parliament majority in 2015 and shed their coalition partners, the CLC was slimmed down to just 12 members. Most of the industry-side members – all hand-picked by government – were either bosses of foreign-owned tier one construction contractors or foreign themselves, or both.
After an outcry from industry lobbyists, the Construction Industry Council, the Association for Consultancy & Engineering and the Construction Products Association (CPA) each managed to get their representatives a seat on the council. Soon more trade associations found their way around the table.
All the while, the CLC seat with the fastest churn has been the government-side co-chair, nominally the minister who holds the construction brief within the Department for Business & Trade (or whatever it is called at the time).
That is now Croydon MP Sarah Jones, who before she became an MP in 2017 (defeating Gavin Barwell), was a civil servant at the Department of Culture. Media & Sport, involved in organising the 2012 Olympics. Before that she worked for housing charity Shelter and the NHS Confederation in lobbying roles.
On her new responsibilities with the Construction Leadership Council, she said: “The construction sector is vital to our economy, supporting thousands of jobs in every part of the UK, and will be at the heart of our mission to deliver growth and get Britain building again.
“I look forward to working closely with the Construction Leadership Council to champion the sector as it builds the infrastructure we need, and ensure its net zero ambitions deliver for both the workforce and our economy”.
The industry-side co-chair, Mark Reynolds, boss of Mace Group, said: “This government has already been very clear about its scale of ambition around infrastructure delivery and growth – and the construction industry clearly has a crucial role in realising those ambitions. The CLC, working in partnership with government, provides crucial leadership to the sector. We’ve already had some productive and insightful conversations with the minister and I look forward to working closely with her over the coming years.”
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