Rebecca Long-Bailey MP, Labour’s Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, responding to today’s ONS construction figures, said:

“It is very concerning that construction continues to decline, which is as a result of the failed Tory plan for our economy. At a time when our country is crying out for new infrastructure, we are seeing infrastructure output is down by more than 10% over the whole year. And with a major housing crisis, housebuilding is now seeing the biggest monthly fall across the whole sector.

"George Osborne should have been investing in the infrastructure and housing this country now urgently needs. But in the last Parliament fewer new homes were built than under any previous peacetime government since the 1920s.

"Instead he stuck to his failed austerity cuts to investment that Philip Hammond help draw up when they were in opposition and then supported in government. 

"It doesn’t matter which Tory Chancellor is in Number 11 – it’s clear the Conservative Party’s economic approach has failed. We need a different, Labour plan, that will end austerity, and start to invest in the infrastructure and housing a 21st century economy demands.”

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