02/05/2025
The UK Government is considering some significant amendments to building regulations which will impact BWF Members and the wider woodworking and joinery manufacturing industry. A consultation of ...
The Construction Products Association (CPA) responded to erroneous articles and statements from both the Telegraph and Independent newspapers last week which stated the size of the prostitution and illegal drugs market in the UK was larger (per new ONS statistics) than that of the construction market and/or house building.
Despite the Telegraph’s grossly inaccurate headline that, “Prostitution and illegal drugs are contributing more to the UK economy than the construction industry, according to the ONS”, the £10 billion estimate for prostitution and illegal drugs combined is in fact dwarfed by the £40 billion output for the construction products sector and the overall total construction output last year of £112 billion.
The BWF is a member of the CPA, which seeks to highlight to political and media decision-makers the central role which our construction products sector plays within the wider UK construction industry, and the importance of that overall industry to the UK economy and society.
A CPA spokesperson commented on the news:
“It is difficult enough to communicate the key messages around so many complex issues facing our business – e.g., energy efficiency and supply, inward investment, sustainability, payment, skills, building regulations; the list goes on – without the simplest facts being mistaken by influential voices. We remain watchful to correct such misperceptions and errors, and suggest that all of our members do the same.”
CPA Senior Economist Kallum Pickering also commented:
“For those who know our industry it’s easy to discard such errors, but this churned up lots of attention and was picked-up heavily on Twitter. The industry has struggled with an image problem for years in that its real size and value to the economy is not recognised. Misnomers such as this reinforce misconceptions, exacerbating the problem further. The industry is at least 20 times larger than has been claimed, and more than 10 times larger than the estimate of ‘illegal industries’.”
The inclusion of illegal drugs and prostitution within GDP is one of a number changes made to European Union regulations on the reporting of GDP information. The ONS say that the figures “will be based on a variety of sources and assumptions” and add that there are “significant limitations in the availability of data”.
