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Robbie Owen

Armitt’s Infrastructure Commission: Not Stalinist just Sensible

Robbie Owen explains how the National Infrastructure Commission is being set up to deliver at speed and why it will make planning better and fairer.

In September 2013 Sir John Armitt published his proposals for how the UK goes about planning its economic infrastructure needs.  Not planning in the sense of the planning and consenting process for individual projects but planning at the macro level. 

His solution to what is seen by many as often a relatively short term, random and disjointed approach, was to establish an independent National Infrastructure Commission. This would have to produce a ‘national infrastructure assessment’ every 10 years, setting out the country’s infrastructure requirements over the following 25-30 years, based on a thorough review of the available evidence.

This assessment would then be submitted to Parliament for its approval via the Treasury, which would be able to propose changes to it. Once approved, the assessment would then be implemented by the government departments concerned being required, within 12 months, to prepare for Parliamentary approval ‘sector infrastructure plans’. 

These plans would have to be compatible with the assessment and the Commission would then have an ongoing role in monitoring their implementation.  

"It was misunderstood by some, who saw it as taking the politics out of infrastructure planning. That was not its purpose or effect, but rather to provide a more coherent framework within which the politics on infrastructure planning, particularly prioritisation given finite resources, would take place."

Sir John’s solution received wide support from across the political spectrum and the infrastructure community, even though it had been commissioned as part of Labour’s Policy Review.

Yet it was misunderstood by some, who saw it as taking the politics out of infrastructure planning. That was not its purpose or effect, but rather to provide a more coherent framework within which the politics on infrastructure planning, particularly prioritisation given finite resources, would take place.

It was made clear that both the national infrastructure assessment and the Sector Infrastructure Plans would need to be approved by Parliament and, in effect, by HM Government, and so the normal complex process of national and local politics surrounding infrastructure would continue as now.

 That was September 2013. Now, earlier in July, these proposals took a firm step forward with the publication by Sir John of a Draft Bill to give effect to his proposals, and a programme of activities required to establish the Commission and get the national infrastructure assessment completed in the 2015-2020 Parliament.  These have been welcomed by Ed Miliband and are intended to be firmly on the agenda of an incoming Labour Government, should it win power in May 2015.

Drafting a Bill is a highly unusual step for a party when in opposition but shows that Labour is serious on this issue and wants to be able to hit the ground running in May 2015.  It was also a useful exercise in testing the proposals and so refining them, such as the proposed two year period for the production of the sector infrastructure plans rather than 12 months, in recognition of how long these things tend to take and the time that has been required to develop and agree their forerunners, the current series of National Policy Statements.

What is clear is that whilst drafting the legislation itself is not exactly rocket science, the challenge will be to get the Commission set up quickly in 2015, in shadow form pending Parliamentary approval of the Bill, so that the national infrastructure assessment can be completed by mid way through the Parliament.  

The Commission will have a lot of existing work to draw upon across all of the sectors concerned, and so it will not be starting from scratch, or indeed want to.

"In the meantime life will carry on as normal...one easy way to demonstrate this would be to make it clear that whatever the Airports Commission comes up with in 2015 will be considered and, if agreed, taken forward, without waiting for the national infrastructure assessment to be completed."

It will also be important to make clear that in the meantime life will carry on as normal, IUK will continue to produce its annual programme of infrastructure projects (described as, but not really, a National Infrastructure Plan) and government departments will not stop planning in their sectors. 

One easy way to demonstrate this would be to make it clear that whatever the Airports Commission comes up with in 2015 will be considered and, if agreed, taken forward, without waiting for the national infrastructure assessment to be completed.

 It will also be vital to show that the Commission will fully involve all key stakeholders, and the public more generally, in its work.  It is not intended to be one whose Commissioners sit in their ivory tower somewhere in Whitehall but a body responsive to all of the key dynamics in infrastructure planning and provision, particularly the differing needs of the English regions and the vital role of infrastructure in rebalancing the economy away from London and the South East.

Some see planning processes and structures such as these as foreign to our culture, just not British!  Indeed, Stalinist, as the former Planning Minister Nick Boles teased me at the National Infrastructure Planning Association annual conference last week. But they make a huge amount of sense and are a workable set of proposals that are the natural next step for the way in which we plan our essential infrastructure.

This government, and indeed the last government have made huge strides in terms of recognising and providing for infrastructure’s role in the recovery, economic growth and our international competitiveness. Now we are ready, from this platform, to do it even better!

Robbie Owen is Head of Infrastructure Planning and Government Affairs at Pinsent Masons LLP

The draft bill and the programme are published for consultation here. Comments are invited by 31 October.