Mr. Sebastian Barnes:

While we have not taken a specific view on how the stimulus should be structured, it is clear that public investment has a great multiplier effect economically. There are forms of such investment, including constructing and retrofitting housing, that are very labour intensive. It is likely that construction activity in both housing and commercial property will be badly hit by the crisis so there will be spare resources in those sectors. If all these things are put together, they show that there may well be opportunities with regard to construction. In the past, we have raised concerns about construction but that was in a period where capacity was very tight for both housing and, in particular, for commercial construction. That is no longer the case. As the circumstances have changed, policy would do well to adapt.