The 2020 Budget will be closely watched by construction. Not only is the chancellor pledging to splash the cash by kicking off his £100bn investment programme, but it is widely expected that the Budget will be accompanied by both the government’s construction strategy and the national infrastructure strategy. That is a lot of policy to absorb and implement in one go, and it begs the question as to whether it is possible to combine an industry transformation with a promise to “level up opportunity in left-behind parts of the country”.

It is an intriguing puzzle, balancing the desire for early and highly visible deliverables with the need to use the investment as carefully and as effectively as possible to increase national productivity, progress towards net-zero and improve quality of life.

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