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A Labour government would set up a new body to break the “inertia” of UK infrastructure delivery, the party has said, in order to end the drift and overspend associated with projects such as the HS2 high speed railway.
Darren Jones, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, told the Financial Times he plans to merge the existing Infrastructure and Projects Authority and the National Infrastructure Commission to create an organisation “at the heart of government” intended to get a grip on the issue.
“The problem we are trying to fix is Britain can’t really build anything anymore,” Jones said. “Investors look at the UK and don’t believe we’re going to build the things we say we’re going to build.”
The move comes after the NIC, the government’s advisory body on infrastructure challenges, last week warned the window was “closing” on UK efforts to catch up on development.
Its latest annual infrastructure progress review found that a failure to go further and faster in the next five years would risk economic growth and threaten climate targets.
Labour’s announcement also follows the cancellation of HS2’s northern leg last October, following delays, overspends and design changes on the southern leg of the flagship rail project to connect the north and south of England.
The proposed body, to be called National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, would stipulate from the outset how projects are planned, designed and costed. No money would be released for a scheme, Jones said, unless it had clearly met the body’s guidance.
The new body would replace the IPA, which currently examines major infrastructure projects and ranks their risk level once they are under way, before reporting back to the Cabinet Office and the Treasury.
It would also replace the NIC, which was set up in 2015 to advise the government on infrastructure policy.
Unlike the IPA, the new organisation would set design and planning guidance at the outset, he said. That guidance would have to be met during business case approval, before any funding was released.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has called an election for July 4, with Labour currently leading the Conservatives 21 points in the polls.
Jones said Labour’s policy development work had highlighted “a huge amount of inertia” within the systems intended to deliver new projects, as well as a lack of co-ordination across government departments and delivery bodies.
The government has said it is speeding up delivery of infrastructure projects, while ensuring they are effectively managed and deliver value for money. It also intends to accredit 16,000 civil servants as government project delivery professionals.