Construction Act included in Queen's speech

The Construction Act has finally made it into the draft legislative programme for 2008/09, outlined in today's Queen's speech.

The act has been included in the Community Empowerment, Housing and Economic Regeneration Bill.

Although the bill doesn’t mention the Construction Act by name, it does set out that it will concentrate on ‘improving the operation of construction contracts’.

The Construction Act review, which looked at new ways of improving legislation and dispute resolution within the industry, has been running for more than three years and the final stage of consultation started last June.

There has been no news since the government received the results from the consultation.

A draft bill will now be published in the summer when it will then go out for consultation.

Specialist Engineering Contractors (SEC) Group chairman Trevor Hursthouse welcomed the news:

“This represents the culmination of over seven years lobbying by SEC Group to tighten up the Act.  We are grateful to the Construction Minister and her officials for their help and support,” he said.