Cracks are already appearing in the Government strategy on the building materials trade gap
The construction industry imports about 10% of its output value in building materials and seems to have done all my adult life at least. Admittedly the figures are a bit ropey, but the pattern looks pretty clear from the top graph. This is important, because the Government’s rather suspect industrial strategy (pdf) for construction has as one of its big targets a 50% cut in the building materials trade gap by 2025. Looking at the current data I reckon that means,…