One of the most effective means by which The Infrastructure Forum develops constructive ideas for the future of the sector is through its Working Groups.  

These have been established in several policy areas, chaired by authoritative figures in the sector, allowing participants in the Forum to put forward constructive ideas and proposals on a range of detailed issues important to the health of infrastructure in the UK.

 

INFRASTRUCTURE MANIFESTO

 

The Infrastructure Forum has developed an ‘infrastructure manifesto’, which aims to provide the teams developing election manifestos for the main political parties with a list of policy ideas to help to improve the delivery of infrastructure in the UK. The manifesto makes the case for increasing the role of private finance, introducing increased capital allowances, overhauling training and skills, strengthening supply chains, and reforming infrastructure planning. We are now moving to equip politicians in all the parties with these ideas, and explore with the manifesto teams how the importance of critical national infrastructure can be captured ahead of the next General Election. The early signs have been that senior and influential figures in all the parties have been receptive to them. The Forum visited Number 10 to explore its proposals in more detail in February 2024. 

 

SCALEABLE INVESTMENT 

 

A new initiative by The Infrastructure Forum in cooperation with Accenture is investigating the opportunity for Scaleable Infrastructure Investment which is exploring the idea of a Front End Commercial Design. The idea, set out at TIF’s recent Advisory Council meeting by Richard Postance of Accenture, is to accept in the wake of HS2 that there is always risk in infrastructure projects beyond engineering itself and that democracy will always require or create “a two-way-door.” The working group will look at how a more deliberate approach to risk in the early, delivery and tail stages of a project might replicate the success of projects like Offshore Wind and Broadband.

 

DECENTRALISING INFRASTRUCTURE

 

The Infrastructure Forum has set up a new working group to explore the potential for decentralised approaches to infrastructure projects. The group will examine the appetite to maximise local and regional engagement and to recommend how projects can be structured and financed, reducing top-down control from Whitehall. This is against a background of very limited progress on levelling-up, noted by the Public Accounts Committee’s recent report. There is an appetite for change with new approaches to projects, greater local and regional engagement, and new forms of central-local financial relationships. Dipesh Shah OBE, Chair of the Oxford to Cambridge Partnership, Chair’s the working group, which had a very successful  first meeting with participants from the energy, transport, water and telecoms sectors on Tuesday 14 May 2024. 
 

CLIMATE ADAPTATION

 

The National Adaptation Programme (NAP3) disappointed stakeholders (including the government’s own independent advisors, the Climate Change Committee) hoping for a step change in the government’s approach. It is a more detailed, serious attempt at corralling government departments to act than NAP2. But it lacks robust economic underpinning, specific actions that will measurably improve resilience to climate impacts, and targets with a plan for monitoring and evaluating progress. The Forum & KPMG have set up a task and finish group due to the strong opportunity to influence the shaping of the initiative, and ensure that industry has a voice in the process. In the run-up to the next UK general election, this is also a very important, timely opportunity to influence the debate, and manifesto drafting.

 

PLANNING

 

The working group, chaired by Robbie Owen of Pinsent Masons, was set up to provide the government with ideas on improving the way in which nationally significant infrastructure projects are treated by the planning system. There has been some progress in planning reform and the Government has agreed to improve, streamline and speed up the regime, but it is not yet clear how quickly these reforms will be delivered. Labour plans, of which the Forum has had sight, suggest that the opposition, when in government, might go rather further than the present administration, along the lines of Forum recommendations. The Working Group is now contributing to the review of obstacles to planning newly-established under Lord Banner KC and had an initial meeting with him on Tuesday 9 April 2024.

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TAXATION

 

In the area of taxation The Infrastructure Forum’s working group has a splendid record of success. It invented the popular Super-deduction and followed this up with a recommendation for a permanent 100% full-expensing regime for capital investment, which was also accepted by the government. Its latest initiative is to promote the idea of Infrastructure Investment Trusts, modelled on Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT), which have proved a successful model. A number of competitor jurisdictions have built on the REIT model to support Infrastructure Investment Trusts, where tax would not be payable during the construction of projects, but only once income was being received from them. Treasury and Department for Business and Trade ministers have welcomed the initiative. The Forum’s working group met with HM Treasury and HM Revenue and Customs officials on 19 December for an initial discussion and subsequently met with Lord Johnson, Minister for Investment in February 2024 to discuss the proposal. 

 

ENERGY

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TIF’s Energy Working Group has worked on a number of submissions examining options for the UK to meet the 2050 decarbonisation target, and how the transition to clean energy should be financed. This work has continued into 2024 with a particular focus on examining the future of nuclear power and carbon capture and storage networks in the UK.

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