Yesterday (October 27) Chancellor Rishi Sunak unveiled the content of his Autumn Budget in the House of Commons, making clear his focus on the “post-covid” era.

Setting out the government’s tax and spending plans for the year ahead, Mr Sunak said his plans would pave the way for an economy of higher wages, higher skills and rising productivity.

A key headline of the 2021 Autumn Budget is the promise of “the largest real-terms increase in overall departmental spending for any parliament this century”.

Total spending by government departments will grow by £150bn a year in cash terms by March 2025, a £90bn real-terms increase.

Latest figures indicate that the economy is on track to reach pre-pandemic levels by early next year, with unemployment peaking at less than half what was initially predicted.

For the construction industry; investments into roads, railways and housing will have a huge impact and will aid in the future growth of the sector.

Here is a summary of the main points.

Roads & Railways

• The government will invest £21bn on roads and £46bn on railways to improve journey times between cities.

Transport

• The chancellor says he will increase investment to support London-style transport across the regions of England.

Housing

• A total of £24bn for housing, including confirmation of a £1.8bn fund for building housing on brownfield land.
• Sunak also confirmed the government’s residential property developers’ tax, which will be levied on developers with annual profits of over 25m at a rate of 4%, to help pay the £5bn cost of removing cladding from high- risk buildings.

Schemes

• The government confirmed a £3.8bn prison building scheme, as well as an extra £2.2bn for courts and rehab facilities.

Training

• A £1.6bn commitment to support vocational training (T levels) for 16-19 year old’s.
• One T level is the equivalent to three A-levels or up to 3 BTecs, with engineering in construction being one for these courses. This could lead further opportunity for the sector to encourage and influence the younger generations into a career in construction.

Employability skills

• The chancellor says the government will raise government spending on skills and training by £3.8bn over the parliament, an increase of 42%.

Cost of living

• The chancellor confirms the national living wage will increase from £8.91 to £9.50 an hour from April.
• The increase in fuel duty will be cancelled, saving motorists £8bn over five years.
•  A further freeze on fuel duty in 12 years will then save the average motorist £1.900.