National Infrastructure Commission: Baseline Report

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Berkeley on securing this short debate. I express my thanks to the National Infrastructure Commission for its report, which provides us all with plenty of food for thought.

In his foreword, Sir John Armitt says he hopes the commission’s output will prompt discussion. Today’s debate is a good start, although we must all acknowledge that this topic requires far more than dialogue alone. We all know that improving infrastructure in its myriad forms is a complicated, long-term project. I hope we will get a sense from the Minister that the Government recognise this and share our appetite to meet the many challenges this country faces. It is also expensive. There will obviously be an important role for the private sector in innovating and delivering change, but those organisations will take their lead from central government, with many likely to fix their gaze on the Treasury and its spending plans. Value for money is and must remain an important consideration, but it seems to me that the starting point is to answer two philosophical questions: what do we want the UK to look like in 20, 50 or 100 years, and how do we get there?

For all the Government’s talk of levelling up, recent ministerial decisions about rail across the north of England seemingly fly in the face of the commission’s call for urban transport connectivity to be improved. Rather than levelling up, I worry that we will see some areas being levelled down to deliver an unsatisfactory equalisation of infrastructure, service and opportunities across the country. Indeed, Transport for London and its custodian, the Mayor of London, are concerned that transport in the capital will have to be placed into managed decline should the Government not ease the organisation’s Covid-related financial difficulties. The Treasury should surely be focused on how the quality and range of transport options can be improved for all.

Of course, it is not just transport identified by the commission as a priority for investment. The body’s list is wide ranging, and I worry that it is symptomatic of more than a decade of Conservative control in Westminster. The tragedy is that, while our Prime Minister takes an interest in infrastructure, his priorities tend to be the wrong ones: an airport in the Thames estuary, a garden bridge in London, a road bridge to Northern Ireland. Each was accompanied by warm words and promises of a brighter future. In truth, the feasibility studies and glossy brochures were a waste of public funds. By focusing on vanity projects, he was distracted from making the right decisions—initially for the people of London, and now for the country as a whole. The result is that we have fallen behind our international friends and competitors where it truly matters. Under this Government, we are not the global leaders we should be.

Problems relating to climate change, including increased risk of localised flooding and what the commission calls “unacceptably high” incidences of water and sewage-related pollution, must be met with concerted and strategic action. That will not only need hard cash but also a proper plan to ensure that resources are available to deliver the commission’s recommendations. The longest lead-time resource is undoubtedly appropriately skilled people. Cash without people is simply a recipe for inflation and disappointment. I hope the commission will study this issue as a vital contribution to the 2023 national infrastructure assessment.

The commission also draws our attention to asset maintenance issues. Those working in the public sector are cursed with the mantra that capital expenditure is good and current expenditure is bad. This results in the premature loss of capital assets as they deteriorate more rapidly due to poor maintenance. As one who was responsible for long-life assets, I know that value for money comes from the whole-life management of capital assets. I hope the commission will continue to emphasise this point in future reports.

There is much to do. The National Infrastructure Commission will now work up a detailed proposal and we look forward to following that work. While options are drawn up and costed, I hope that Ministers will undertake some of the necessary preparatory work, including gathering data, setting targets, and delivering reforms to education and training. As a nation, we are capable of so much; we have world-leading scientists, academics, engineers and architects. We have talented young people who, with the right guidance, can fill those roles and others into the future, building a Britain with much better, greener, and more resilient infrastructure. What they need—and what the country needs—is clear, strategic leadership. By the time the commission comes forward with its next assessment in 2023, we must be ready with our answers to the big questions. Until then, I hope the Minister can provide a sense that his party is learning from previous mistakes in relation to infrastructure and has a sense of where to go next.

Can I repeat some of the points I have made? First, the National Infrastructure Commission is a brilliant idea, but the problem is it does not have saliency. We as politicians should, on a cross-party basis, be helping to build its saliency so that it happens. Secondly, we mismanage the whole people issue; the people have to be related to their whole-life experience, including the skill and be able to learn new skills. Thirdly, we do not look after our assets properly. The maintenance problem comes partly from capitalism without appropriate rules, partly from the way we account for money, and it fails to take account of the real value of looking at all of an asset and all of its future. If we start to get these things right, which will need a partnership between state and private sector, we can look forward to a better value future.