Federation of Master Builders (FMB) Director General Richard Diment, speaking at the FMB Scotland annual conference in St. Andrews gave a powerful speech detailing the difficult situation faced by builders across Scotland and called on both Holyrood and Westminster to do much more to help Scottish building firms.

Richard Diment, Director General of the FMB said: "The impact of the credit crunch is not confined to Wall Street or the City of London, it is felt by all of us and in particular by the construction industry, always one of the first sectors to suffer at times of economic difficulty and also one of the last to recover.

"We know that when recession last hit, 500,000 people were made redundant in our industry, it is imperative that this is not allowed to happen again!"


Diment continued: "The FMB represents those hardest hit by the credit crunch, the small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), and the backbone of the economy. The FMB is therefore working with a number of politicians, both here in Scotland and at Westminster to develop a range of policies that will help SME builders weather the economic storm.

"The FMB is calling on Holyrood and Westminster to give commitments to a concrete agreement for all local and national government bills to be settled within 10 days and to ensure that this filters down the supply chain to all sub contractors, as per the the National Specialist Contractors Council's "Fair Payment" Campaign, ensuring that larger contractors settle their bills on time; greater amounts of local and national government work being awarded to SME building firms; a cut in VAT from 17.5 per cent to five per cent for all building repair and maintenance work and encouraging banks to start lending again to SME businesses."

Diment concluded while FMB members will be better placed to deal with the economic challenges that lie ahead, things will still be difficult. He said alone with his colleagues, at offices in Edinburgh and in London they are working with politicians and industry at the highest level to make sure that they are aware of the problems facing members and the wider industry.

(GK/JM)