UK construction sector should improve soon, says Bank of England's Ben Broadbent The British construction sector - which accounts for less than 7pc of GDP - was a victim of a global credit crunch, not a local boom beforehand, he said. The contraction in capital spending by the public sector is soon to come to an end... Thanks in part to the FLS, banks' funding conditions have fallen significantly this year. This holds out the prospect of some easing in domestic credit supply," Mr Broadbent said, adding that a greater availability of mortgages would push up residential investment. He noted that since 2008 it was the supply of mortgage debt, not the demand for it, that was driving activity in the British housing market. Mr Broadbent also defended inflation as the right target for the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), noting that the MPC would continue to set policy in order to meet it. The MPC will announce its monthly policy decision next week and Mr Broadbent had already indicated his reluctance to vote for more quantitative easing (QE) asset purchases, saying in September that high inflation limited the central bank's scope to ease policy. Since then, data showed that annual inflation slowed to 2.2pc in September, nearer the Bank of England's target of 2pc. However, MPC member Spencer Dale said in an interview on Monday that inflation was sticky and repeated his call for caution around more QE. On the other hand, comments by Dale and fellow policymaker Charlie Bean that the strong GDP growth recorded in the third quarter was unlikely to persist suggested that a decision by the central bank next week to hold fire on more bond-buying might be less clear-cut than many analysts had begun to believe.