CPA Weekly Notes – 3rd October 2025

Issue No. 1171, 3rd October 2025 FOR MEMBERS ONLY

Association Activities

CPA Engagement at Labour Party Conference
The CPA attended the Conference over the past days and was pleased to meet with a number of Government Ministers, select committee members and MPs representing constituencies with our members’ businesses, including:  Secretary of State for MHCLG Steve Reed; Chief Secretary to the Treasury James Murray; Construction Minister Chris Murray; Minister for Nature Mary Creagh; Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee Toby Perkins; Chair of the Defra Select Committee Bill Esterson; Construction Champion Mike Reader MP; Tom Collins MP (Worcester) and others.

CPA is supporting CRASH Charity at the Autumn Lunch 2025 – Donate and enter the Raffle
CPA is proud to support CRASH – the UK construction industry charity since 2002. CRASH is all about helping homelessness charities and hospices with vital construction projects and creating places that care for people – and this makes it a perfect fit for the CPA and all our guests from across the construction supply chain. We will have  a collection of donations during the Lunch for CRASH (card payments are also accepted), at the end of the speeches we will have a small raffle. Please get in touch with Fabi if you would like to donate a prize for the raffle. 

CPA Weekly Calendar of Meetings 

• Peter Caplehorn, CPA Chief Executive, will meet with directors at the MHCLG, OPSS and Building Safety Regulator to discuss product issues; attend an advisory committee meeting hosted by MHCLG about implementation and transition to a new regulator; and join a regular meeting of the Construction Leadership Council’s Task Force.
• Professor Noble Francis, CPA Economics Director, will meet with economists at CBI to discuss forecasts; will join a meeting of an NHBC Expert Panel to discuss economic issues facing the sector.
• Mark Wilkinson, CPA Senior Technical Manager, will attend a workshop hosted by Construction Products Europe about digital construction.
• Jane Thornback, CPA Sustainability Policy Advisor, will join a judging panel for the Brick Awards (sustainability); attend a meeting hosted by DESNZ officials for the CLC’s Green Construction Board members working on the Built Environment circular economy roadmap to discuss the proposals.
• Rob Lee, CPA Senior External Affairs Manager, will attend the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester, including meetings with Rt Hon Mel Stride MP, Katie Lam MP, Dame Harriet Baldwin MP and others.

Economics Update

CPA Weekly UK Economic and Construction Update
The latest weekly update is available here including:

• DBT UK Brick Deliveries (August 2025)
• HMRC UK Residential Property Transactions (August 2025)
• Bank of England UK Mortgage Approvals (August 2025)
• Nationwide UK House Price Index (September 2025)
• Taylor Wimpey Trading Statement (October 2025)

The CPA’s Summer forecasts were published on Monday, 28 July, and are available from the CPA Website, whilst its Autumn forecasts will be published on Monday 27 October. 

Government Update

Ministerial Responsibilities Finalised 
After the recent reshuffle it often takes a little time for individual ministers responsibilities to be finalised. This has now happened and responsibilities have been confirmed for all Ministers. Chiefly for our industry are the  two junior Ministers and their responsibilities who are as follows: 

Samantha Dixon MP
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Minister for Building Safety, Fire and Democracy) MHCLG
Building safety, regulations, Building Safety Regulator and remediation, Net Zero and energy efficiency, Grenfell Inquiry response, Grenfell Community, Tower and Memorial, Fire policy and operations, Resilience, recovery, and emergencies, Elections policy, Planning casework.

Chris McDonald MP 
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Minister for Industry) DBT & DESNZ

DBT responsibilities include:
advanced manufacturing, automotive, aerospace, chemicals and plastics, construction, infrastructure, maritime and shipbuilding, steel, materials and critical minerals, Industrial Development Advisory Board, defence

DESNZ responsibilities include:
Office For Clean Energy Jobs, green jobs and skills, green growth sectors, energy sector supply chains, energy infrastructure investments, industrial decarbonisation and emissions trading, including fuel switching, carbon leakage, industrial energy bill.

DESNZ Survey Request
The UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) Product Standards team invites CPA members to take part in a short survey on Ecodesign requirements for standby, off-mode and networked standby.  The aim of this survey is to gather evidence on the potential impacts if the UK aligns with the EU’s updated Regulation (EU) 2023/826, and to compare these with the current GB requirements under Regulation (EC) No 1275/2008. The EU’s updated rules would increase the stringency of requirements and bring additional products into scope. Your input will help DESNZ assess the implications for UK businesses and inform future policy.
 The survey can be accessed via the following link: https://survey.alchemer.eu/s3/90904374/Standby-Networked-Standby-Survey.  It will ask some questions about your organisation, your product portfolio, and your views on the current and future requirements.  A separate Excel file is provided for you to add technical and sales volume details about your products.
 All responses will be viewed only by DESNZ and its research agencies and combined to build an anonymised, aggregate picture. If you are a trade association, you are welcome to provide association-level responses and/or coordinate input from your members.

Consultation on Late Payments
The Department for Business and Trade has launched a consultation seeking views on proposed legislative measures to ensure companies pay their suppliers quickly and on time, including measures to address the use of retention clauses in construction contracts.  This is an important consultation for construction both in terms of the proposed options for retentions and the wider general payment measures.  DBT wants CPA members to recognise that retentions may not be a direct issue for our manufacturers, but payment certainly is.  The consultation runs for 12 weeks and closes on 23 October 2025. Further details can be found here.

Government consultation on water efficiency requirements in building regulations
Government is proposing a plan to strengthen Water Efficiency Standards in the Building Regulations 2010, Part G, to require tighter standards in new homes.  It also seeks more information on enabling water reuse systems in new developments to enable even greater water efficiency in homes. The deadline is 16 December.  Find the documents here Water Efficiency Standards: a review of Building Regulations 2010 Part G2 – GOV.UK

Industry News

Industrial emissions: modernising environmental permitting
Government is consulting on Industrial emissions: modernising environmental permitting – GOV.UK. The deadline is 21st October 2025 and more information can be found here.Review of Government Buying Standards (GBS)
The Government is reviewing the  Government Buying Standards – these are guidelines that state that any new government procured building should be BREEAM Excellent, and any major refurbishment should achieve a BREEAM Very Good rating. There are also GBS for product groups such as windows, wood products, paints and varnishes, domestic gas boilers, Showers, taps, toilets, and others. Defra has issued a stakeholder survey here and will be convening webinars in September. Find the GBS for different product groups here. For further information contact Jane Thornback.

CPA in the News

Drop in brick deliveries signals ‘weak’ demand for housebuilding
Rebecca Larkin, head of construction research at the Construction Products Association, said the figures raise a question mark over when the housebuilding recovery will begin. “While there is often a dip in summer, this fall seems to echo what has been reported throughout the supply chain – that housing market demand and housebuilding activity still remains weak,” she told Construction News. “For the year to date, brick deliveries are one-quarter lower than they were at the peak of activity that occurred in the same period of 2022.
Construction News| 01/10/2025 | Online

CAB announces date for latest AGM
The Council for Aluminium in Building (CAB) will hold its 31st Annual General Meeting at Stratford’s Crowne Plaza on the 23rd October. The headline speaker will be Noble Francis, Economics Director at the Construction Products Association (CPA), who will provide an update on the economic outlook for the construction sector.
Glass and Glazing| 23/09/2025 | Online

Demand for housing work stalls despite recovery hopes
Product manufacturers expected demand for work in the housebuilding sector to have recovered by this point in 2025, the Construction Products Association (CPA) head of construction research Rebecca Larkin told Construction News. But that recovery “has still not materialised”, she said, in either the new-build or housing repairs, maintenance and improvement sectors.
Construction News| 24/09/2025 | Online

Why UK’s biggest cement factory may not help ‘build, baby, build
The high cost of energy is another major issue, according to Peter Caplehorn, chief executive of the Construction Products Association. New initiatives to reduce energy costs came into force in April this year, so the full effects are yet to be calculated. UK industrial electricity prices are more than 150 per cent higher than the EU median.
Times | 13/09/2025 | Online

Rachel Reeves hires planning lawyer to speed up big infrastructure projects
Noble Francis, economics director at the Construction Products Association, said there was a “host of investors that have the finance ready but they will need certainty over the planning regime”.
FT| 12/09/2025 | Online

CABE Awards Two Autumnal Honorary Fellowships in Recognition of its Centenary Year
The first to receive their Honorary Fellowship on the day was Hanna Clarke, Digital and Policy Managerat theConstruction Products Association (CPA).Hanna sits on the Industry Response Group, helping to steer actions for making existing buildings safer in the wake of the Grenfell disaster. She works closely with the UK government, the Building Safety Regulator and the Office for Product Safety and Standards, as well as being part of several BSI standards committees.
Construction Industry Today| 15/09/2025 | Online