UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [HL]

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 24th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. I declare my membership of Peers for the Planet and my position as vice-president of the Local Government Association.

I start with the irony highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. To anyone listening to our debate from the outside, welcome to the see-saw. Today, we have a powerful demonstration of the utter failure of our system of governance. One Government set up the UK Green Investment Bank plc in 2012; a few years later, it is sold off to an Australian investment bank, Macquarie, with an extremely dubious reputation, through a process that the Public Accounts Committee concluded was deeply flawed. Now, we are essentially re-creating that thing that we destroyed a few years ago. We come to this debate having considered earlier today a report on children’s social care, which highlighted that one Government created an extensive network of Sure Start centres. They have now been destroyed and we are looking to re-create something similar again.

We have an archaic, dysfunctional constitution, delivering governance that see-saws between creation and destruction, taking with it jobs, knowledge, skills, institutions and infrastructure. We talk a lot about the failures of the British economy, sometimes blaming British workers. Why do we have a productivity problem? Perhaps we have an extremely unproductive, ineffective system of governance. It is easy to blame individuals but the underlying problem is the structure.

I have focused on that point—some noble Lords may feel that I have laboured it—because the Minister highlighted the problem in her introduction. I wrote down some of the adjectives she used; she said that they are aiming to create something “long lasting”, “long term” and “enduring”. There is a positive point to be made here, because if there is any part of our government structure that can engage in an act of co-creation, see different sides of politics get together and, I hope, agree on something that will endure for the long term through different Governments, weirdly enough, in our constitution, the House of Lords might just be the place where it can be done. I hope and am confident that the Minister will approach Committee and Report in that light.

We have possibly seen a positive sign in getting a perhaps ideologically unlikely alliance between the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, who are both questioning whether we should be creating a bank to do this at all. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, I would not want to start from here; I would not want to see the Government putting money into all this and seeing all this happen anyway. Given that we do start from where we are, however, we have a chance to try to do something positive. However, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth: £22 billion sounds nice when you say it quickly, but when you look at the goals being set before it and recall that the 2019 Green Party manifesto talked about spending £100 billion a year on tackling the climate emergency, that perhaps sets the scale for what we are talking about here.

Many noble Lords have already covered—I will not go over the same ground—the essential need to write the biodiversity crisis in alongside the climate emergency. I note pretty much total agreement between the noble Baronesses, Lady Young of Old Scone and Lady Hayman, and many others who have made that point. However, as you might expect from a Green, I would like to go much further, because even just focusing on climate and nature does not go nearly far enough. We have clearly identified and documented nine planetary boundaries that we are breaking, and we need to think holistically and systemically in the way set out by the sustainable development goals that our Government and all global Governments have agreed to—to look at this in a complete, holistic way. The Bill might be a place where we can start to do that. More than that, it might be a place where we can start to do doughnut economics.

I come down to some specifics of how we might look at changing the Bill to do this. When I talk about doughnut economics, I am talking about tackling the huge social crises that we face, as well as the environmental crises. Clause 2(3)(b) says that the objectives of the bank are

“to support regional and local economic growth.”

To pick up some points made by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, why are we just talking about growth? Who is the growth for and where are the benefits of that growth going? Surely what we need for levelling up is to tackle poverty and the massive issues of public health—such as the differentials in expected lifespan that we see in different parts of the country—and social infrastructure, as the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, who is not currently in his place, said. We need to look at Clause 2(3)(b) and find a way of saying how this delivers for the people of Britain in our most disadvantaged areas. Just saying “growth” does not do that.

Clause 2(5)(a), which I think we will be talking about a great deal, refers to

“water, electricity, gas … or other services”.

Many noble Lords have highlighted the urgent need to conserve energy, home energy efficiency et cetera—we talk about this endlessly. I am not a lawyer but, at a stretch, one could perhaps define “services” as including reducing the demand for those services. None the less, it is clear that we need to write that into the Bill.

More than that, one of the huge issues we face socially at the moment is food security—something which the Government are now increasingly acknowledging. This is where we can really start to join up the social and the environmental. Yesterday, I happened to be at the global conference on biocontrol, which was looking at the ways in which we can use biological knowledge to control pests and diseases of crops, getting away from chemical pesticides. This is an industry which is very much dominated by small and medium enterprises, which are significantly undercapitalised and have huge problems getting through regulatory barriers. That might be a great area for the UK Infrastructure Bank to get involved in. Building up the infrastructure of our agriculture and supporting agroecology meets both environmental and social objectives.

On Clause 2(5)(b), we again come to the point about social and environmental impacts. I do not believe that this new bank should be investing in one new road; new roads are not benefits to people, and they are certainly not benefits to the environment. I can guarantee that there will be an amendment coming from me on that basis.

Coming back to a couple of general points—I warn noble Lords that I will get more radical yet—the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, pointed out that the previous Green Investment Bank rather went for the safe, the money-making and the certain. We must ask the question: is this bank here to make money or to deliver for our society? Here I join with the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, both of whom reflected on the dictatorship of the Treasury. Is this the right department to oversee this bank? This Bill is written for the purposes of levelling-up and for environmental improvement. Why not give joint control of the bank to Defra and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities? After all, that is what this is supposed to be for—I am not sure what the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, will think about that; I wait to see her response.

I am not going to get into detail about this, but I note the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, and I very much look forward to the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, on the issue of ensuring that this is not yet another imposition from Westminster on the other nations of the UK. Failing a level of control being taken away from the Treasury, I think that the points of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, about the qualifications of the board were really important.

Finally, on climate considerations, I think that we need to include terminology around renewable electricity in Clause 2(5)(a). It is absolutely crucial that this does not include gas and does not go towards funding fossil-fuel investments. We have seen reports that BEIS is trying to define green investments as including gas as a transitional fuel. But that ignores the fact that we must shift to renewables now—renewables are the cheapest and best option. Fugitive methane means that gas must not be included in the activities of this bank.

UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [HL]

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Tuesday 14th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 6 in my name and start by declaring my interests as a project director and engineer with Atkins, and as a director of Peers for the Planet.

The problem we have, in my view, is that the second objective of the UK investment bank—to support local and regional economic growth—does not provide a clear policy intent for what the bank is to do in relation to levelling up. Getting these objectives right from the start is crucial. As the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, said at Second Reading,

“the most important debates will focus on the Government’s definition of infrastructure and the scope of the two core objectives. We must get these core components right from the off”—[Official Report, 24/5/22; cols. 824-5.]

As I said at Second Reading, the current wording leaves much open to interpretation. Almost any infrastructure investment anywhere in the country could be argued to support economic growth in the region or local area in which it sits. A new transport scheme in a wealthy area of Sussex, for example, would meet this criterion by supporting local and regional economic growth. There is nothing to clarify that this refers to levelling up, or to economically disadvantaged areas. I listened carefully to what the Minister had to say in response to this at Second Reading—she stated that the policy intent is clear—but I believe the Bill would benefit from setting out in more detail exactly what this goal entails, which I will come to shortly.

I briefly remind noble Lords of the issues we are facing here. The levelling-up White Paper stated:

“The UK has larger geographical differences than many other developed countries on multiple measures, including productivity, pay, educational attainment and health.”


As the Economist put it recently:

“Britain is highly geographically unequal ... It is as if America’s rust belt or the former East Germany were home to half the population.”


As an example, I took a walk through central Derby on Sunday and asked my sons to count the number of empty shop units. We counted 14 over a 200-metre stretch in the city centre, from Iron Gate to Corn Market. The only retail outlets that seemed to be thriving were betting shops—I counted five. This issue is repeated right across the Midlands region. Walking around comparable stretches in London, I see one or two empty units at most. I know the Government get this, and I am looking forward to seeing the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill come before this House, but it emphasises that we need to make clear what is meant by levelling up in this vital legislation. Although the intent is clear from the Chancellor on his strategic steer to the bank, it needs also to be clear in the legislation. Levelling up is a long-term, generational project, so legislation supporting it must be crystal clear as to what needs to be accomplished. The strategic steer will not set policy intent over the long term; having this clear on the face of the Bill will, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, powerfully argued.

My amendment is straightforward, and I also support Amendment 9 in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans and Amendment 7 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, to which I would have added my name had I spotted them in time; they get at the same issues as my amendment. My amendment would strengthen the current wording by referring specifically to reducing

“geographical inequality through supporting regional and local economic growth in areas of economic disadvantage”.

This, I believe, clearly captures the Government’s policy intent for this objective and ensures that the legislation will deliver in the long term for disadvantaged areas, will deliver for the levelling-up agenda, and will make a real difference to the lives of people in those left-behind communities. I would be grateful if the Minister, in her summing up, could expand on how she believes the current wording provides a clear policy intent.

I also strongly support Amendment 4 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. As an example, the UN has called for climate finance to be split equally between efforts to curb and adapt to climate change, but most goes towards mitigation. However, I cannot beat the Cinderella analogy from the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone. Therefore, it is right that adaption should be split out from the core emissions targets as a specific aim, and I support the words of other noble Lords on why biodiversity should be placed on an equal stature with climate change within the objectives of the bank.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, whom I thank for his expression of support for Amendment 7.

This is quite a large group of amendments addressing quite a narrow area of the Bill, but clearly this is crucially important. We are talking about the objectives of the bank. It is interesting that it has two objectives listed, one of which, looking at the amendments tabled by your Lordships, we clearly feel is too narrow, and the other of which is insufficiently clear. I will not speak at length to the many amendments here addressing and tackling adaptation, biodiversity and the nature crisis, because, as a Green, I do not need to; it has already been so clearly and explicitly said from all sides of the House that it does not need to come from me. We talk about tackling the climate emergency, but we must also tackle the nature crisis. It is a related and equal threat to the security of us all and it must be in the Bill. Also, the reference by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, to the circular economy is interesting. I get at this in a different way, in terms of demand reduction and resource-use reduction, in the next group, so I will not go into that in depth now.

As the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, made clear, the second objective, to support regional and local economic growth, could mean local growth in Kensington and Chelsea or in the Sheffield constituency of Hallam, which a few years ago had the lowest rate of free school meals of any constituency in the country. The Government’s rhetoric and the discussion around this Bill says that this is supposed to be targeting disadvantaged areas, but there is nothing in the Bill which says that. Both our amendments, and the amendment tabled by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, seek to address this. However, mine also has an extra, intentionally radical element in that it takes out “economic growth”. Your Lordships’ House has heard me say before that we cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet and that chasing after growth is a problem. So, even if we target this on the most disadvantaged areas, which certainly need development, is it economic growth per se that they need? Who is the advantage of that growth and wealth going to?

I quote the Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who pointed out that if our measures tell us that everything is fine when really it is not, we will become complacent. Despite the increases in GDP, and despite the 2008 crisis being well behind us, everything is not fine. Growth on its own will not solve the problem of levelling up—even growth directed to those areas. We are seeing considerable moves in parts of government towards recognising this.

I note that the Office for National Statistics has a national well-being programme that has 10 broad dimensions which have been shown to matter to people. They are the natural environment; personal well-being; our relationships; health; what we do; where we live; personal finance; the economy; education and skills; and governance. Looking around the world, the EU Council has defined the economy of well-being as putting people and their well-being at the centre of policy and decision-making. I have referred before in your Lordships’ House to the New Zealand Treasury having produced well-being budgets, which operate by guidance under the living standards framework. It is about improving people’s lives, which is what so many areas of our country desperately need.

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Moved by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

10: Clause 2, page 1, line 14, at end insert—
“(c) to reduce to sustainable levels the United Kingdom's use of natural resources and emissions of non-greenhouse pollutants, and(d) to secure the interests of future generations.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment inserts additional objectives of the Bank to protect future generations, reduce pollution and reduce natural resource use.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 10 I am rather aware from the Minister’s response to the previous group that this may have been grouped differently in her list compared to mine. I am just going to proceed anyway and if she says “I refer you to my previous answer” at the end, I will understand.

Amendment 10 refers to reducing “to sustainable levels” the UK’s

“use of natural resources and emissions of non-greenhouse pollutants”

and to securing “the interests of future generations.” To address the second part first, I am sure many noble Lords will recognise the language there, which is very much inspired by the Private Member’s Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, about protecting the well-being of future generations—and indeed by the progress made in Wales, with its future generations Act. It is perhaps another way of getting towards first do no harm, as we discussed in the previous group of amendments. But more than that, it is making a larger claim: we know that the natural world in the UK is in a parlous state with air pollution, water pollution, et cetera. It is saying that if we are looking after the well-being of future generations, the bank should be investing to improve the state of things, not just to make sure that they do not get any worse.

The first part of this amendment addresses something that your Lordships’ House and the Government really need to get more focused on, which is planetary limits. In the previous group, we started to talk about how we need to add attention to biodiversity, the state of nature and nature-based solutions, tying together those planetary limits which the world is crossing over. Actually, academics are telling us that we have now broken five of the nine planetary boundaries. Three of those are climate, biodiversity and land system change, which we have already covered to some degree, but we have also come to the other two broken planetary limits. These are biogeochemical flows and what is generally known as pollution from novel entities—in general terminology, we might talk there about chemicals. About 350,000 of these are used in the world, which includes pesticides, antibiotics, plastics, industrial chemicals in mining and pharmaceuticals.

The reason for this amendment adding an objective to the bank, so that it starts to address these issues and reduces the harm done by these chemicals is that we—globally and in the UK—are very much exceeding our share of the limits of these things. This amendment is thus supposed to address both biogeochemical flows and the novel chemicals.

Coming briefly to the biogeochemical flows, the rates of nitrate and phosphate use in the UK are both well above the global average and, according to a global footprint report, we must

“Reduce nitrogen and phosphorus use by at least 80%”

—yes, I did say 80. If we are to have a bank that is investing in the kind of economy we have to live within in future, given the planetary limits, it needs to be thinking about not just climate and nature but the damage being done. Here we get to our farming systems, which is why my previous amendment referred to infrastructure that deals with food production. This is overwhelmingly related to that when we come to phosphorus and nitrogen—although sewage plants have their place. We have to look at this as a whole and see that the bank is essentially investing, for shorthand, in a sustainable economy.

The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, had in the previous group an amendment on the circular economy. That is a necessary and essential step forward but it is not a sufficient step, because we have to make sure not only that we are not treating the planet as a dumping ground—mining materials out of the earth and just dumping them—but that we stop mining those materials, or at least vastly reduce the amount we are mining. That is what my first amendment seeks to achieve. If anyone wants to know where my research, particularly around novel entities, comes from, it is from the Stockholm Resilience Centre, published earlier this year in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

I will address one other point, which very much goes back—as I think we will do several times in this group—to our debates on the Environment Act: reducing resource use. I refer noble Lords to a report that the WWF put out when we were debating the then Environment Bill on the UK’s overseas land-use footprint. That showed that

“between 2016 and 2018, an average annual area of 21.3 million hectares … was required to supply the UK’s demand for the seven commodities”.

When thinking about what the bank is investing in, we cannot be putting further pressure on other parts of the world through that. This is an attempt to bring in a systems-thinking approach.

I come now to the other amendments in my name in this group, which noble Lords may be pleased to hear are both simpler and shorter. The first is Amendment 18. When we look at the way this Bill is written, it is quite surprising that on infrastructure it says

“roads or other forms of transport”.

This seems a rather odd way round for a Bill that is supposed to be addressing the climate emergency. My amendment seeks to take out the word “roads”. I do not believe that the UK Infrastructure Bank should be investing in any new roads. We know that new roads generate more traffic. For the foreseeable future, on the crucial point of keeping the rise in world temperature below 1.5 degrees, roads and traffic are going to generate significant amounts of greenhouse gases, not to mention all the other impacts such as air and noise pollution. If this investment is going into disadvantaged areas, the last thing they need is more air and noise pollution. Electric vehicles also produce air pollution, with a large amount of the pollution they produce being particulate matter pollution from tyres and brakes. Building new roads in disadvantaged areas makes no environmental, social, economic or well-being sense. I have simply sought to take out the word “roads” and insert “mass” transport. That is obviously what the bank should be investing in, for both environmental and social reasons.

My final point is on my Amendment 25, on something that a number of noble Lords raised at Second Reading. The activities of the bank cover a large number of utilities, obviously including electricity and water, et cetera. The Bill talks about “services” but it is not clear whether “services” includes demand reduction and efficiency. The cleanest, greenest energy we can possibly have is the energy we do not need to use. The UK Infrastructure Bank surely has to be investing in reducing the demand for electricity, heating and water use—in these islands water stress is becoming an increasing issue with the reality of climate change and the adaptation issues we were discussing earlier. The Minister may say that the Bill already covers these demand reduction issues, but I feel that it should say explicitly that the bank should be investing in demand reduction of that which it is investing in the generation of. I beg to move.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

I am pleased to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and speak to the amendments in my name in this group. My amendments, grouped under two headings, “environmental restoration” and “human enablement and empowerment”, start with Amendment 13. I think we should have in the Bill that the bank should be prohibited from investing in any projects that are not inclusive by design. What does “inclusive by design” mean? It is simply this: that all users are enabled in whatever that system, infrastructure or structure itself actually is.

I can give a quick example, of where so-called shared space has been laid out across the country, with local authorities using public money to take areas—be that a local piece of public realm, a high street or whatever—which previously were independently accessible by all members of the community. When so-called shared space is put in, kerbs, crossings, road markings and barriers are taken out, and it becomes a free-for-all whereby toddlers and tankers, buses and blind people are somehow able to coexist because of this misguided concept. Public money is being used to take spaces that were previously accessible and make them effectively inaccessible. It is being used effectively to plan out of their local public realm more than one-third of the community. It is critical that in the Bill there is a clear statement of intent that anything that the bank invests in is inclusive by design.

Amendment 19 highlights the critical importance of energy efficiency and security. Much has already been said on energy efficiency, so I shall focus on energy security. There could hardly be a more significant time to make the point of the UK’s need to have greater energy security, and for that to be dramatically enhanced through understanding what it means to have a more local and more environmentally sound supply.

On Amendment 21, there could barely be a more significant piece of infrastructure than clean air. Air in so many parts of this city and other cities across the United Kingdom is actually killing our citizens. If the bank’s objectives are so clearly set as economic, with a capital “E”, clean air fits clearly within that. If we want our citizens, at whatever age or whatever stage they are at, to be fit, happy, healthy and able to develop and deploy all their talents, what they breathe could barely be more significant.

Amendment 22 looks at the UK cash infrastructure. I believe that, for reasons of financial inclusion and resilience, this again should be designated as infrastructure for the purposes of the bank—and perhaps even one stage above that, and designated as critical national infrastructure. For all the arguments around financial inclusion that we ran through in the Financial Services Act 2021—I intend to return to them when the financial services and markets Bill comes to your Lordships’ House—but also for the times in which we live, we need to have resilience in our financial systems. Cash would currently seem to be incredibly significant in providing that resilience, if and when things happen to the digital platforms and systems at local and national level.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I commit to the Committee that I and the Government will listen very carefully to our proceedings today and, of course, to the advice from the noble Lord’s committee and other expert advisers to the Government. On the particular discussion we are having on a number of aspects of this Bill, I think we agree on the aims that we want to achieve. We may disagree on the mechanism of it, but that does not mean that the contributions of this Committee will not be taken into account before we get to Report.

I hope that, with all that in mind, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson—oh, I have skipped ahead. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, will withdraw her amendment and that other noble Lords will not move theirs when they are reached.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I thank the Minister for her encouraging, in some respects, response to this rich debate on this important group. I am sure that noble Lords who have flooded into the Chamber for another purpose will be pleased to know that I will not run through all 14 amendments in the group individually.

In welcoming what the Minister said, the Government say that they regard energy conservation and demand reduction as an important part of the bank’s remit. We all find that encouraging, but I am sensing that the broad mood of the Committee, right around these Benches, is that there is still a very strong desire to see that in the Bill.

I also pick up on the point which I guess the Minister made in reference to my amendment on roads. The Minister said—I think I am quoting directly—that “clean air is covered under climate change”. I direct the Minister to the point I made: about half of the particulate matter pollution from vehicles comes from tyres and brakes. That is not a climate change issue but it is very much an air pollution issue, and it needs to be considered.

I have no doubt that we will keep coming back to Amendment 17 on energy efficiency. The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, made the important point that this is not just an environmental issue; it is also a poverty reduction issue, and there is a dual benefit from that.

I want to pick up one issue that I think the Minister did not cover, on the points I made about resource use, pollution and novel chemicals. I understand that, as a Treasury Minister, she may not encounter novel chemicals, phosphates and nitrogen cycles on a daily basis. However, I ask her to go and talk to Defra about those issues.

I will return to the whole issue of planetary limits on Report. With expressions of interest around the Committee, I think I will definitely return to the issue of roads on Report. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 10 withdrawn.

UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [HL]

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 2
Tuesday 14th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 52, which is essentially to do with accountability and enforceability. One can only make accountable and enforceable something that is clear. I think the statute is elegantly drafted: it is very short, the phrases are chosen with particular objectivity and it reads extremely well.

Moreover, the regulation power is not that extensive and that is to be commended. There is no guidance, which is better still, but an extraordinary feature of this legislative process, to which the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, referred, is the framework document. I tried to look at what the articles of association say, but all that is registered at Companies House is the present status of the bank as a private company. The statute makes provision for the articles of association to say things, and I hope there will at least be a copy of the draft available, but the statute is remarkable in that, as has appeared from the eloquent answers the Minister has given this afternoon, the framework is critical, but is not even referred to in the Bill. That may be a first. It is an extremely important piece of the legislation that is not even referred to in the legislation.

In addition, it is a memorandum of understanding, as I picked up; “memorandum of understanding” is a phrase often used when one does not quite know whether it is legally enforceable or not. On this occasion, the Minister has made it clear that it is in part legally enforceable and in part not. It is profoundly unsatisfactory that the obligations and duties are not set out in an instrument that, first, is brought up to date—as we shall discover later, bits of it are contradictory to the provisions of the Bill—secondly, that we have not seen a draft of and, thirdly, really needs revising. I hate to say this to the hard-pressed civil servants, no doubt reduced in number, who will have to revise this, but it has to be revised. I believe the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, is right: we need to put a provision in the Bill dealing with the framework, because it is integral. It is far more important than the articles of association.

First, we have to get the Bill in a better legal shape, so that all the documents that are necessary for the proper constitution of what is a public bank are properly in the public domain and subject to parliamentary control. Secondly, it is important that there is proper accountability, for both the performance of the bank and the discharge of its duties, and the statute is so elegant in setting out what those duties are.

As the framework document recognises, there is a tension between the various duties the bank has to carry out and the enforcement options, which need to be made very clear. First, the Treasury has a critical role, as the Minister acknowledged at Second Reading. Secondly, there is the question of Parliament. At the moment, there is no proper parliamentary accountability if the base documents that control the bank are not subject to some form of legislative incorporation and scrutiny by this House. Thirdly, there is the position of the courts. From what the Minister said on the previous group, it is clear that, if the bank is not discharging its duties and the Treasury does not tell the bank to do something about it, it becomes enforceable, at the instance of interested parties, in the courts.

The first fundamental area to get right is the legal structure, and it is not right. The second is to make certain we have got the enforcement structure right. We are talking about large sums of public money. More importantly, we are talking about doing something to deal with two of the great crises of the time: climate and environmental change, and trying to bring about better equality between the various parts of our nation.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 68, which appears in my name. We have already had an interesting debate essentially about the operational independence of the bank. Looking around the Chamber, I think there are two noble Lords here who were also in the Schools Bill which we are taking in parallel with this Bill. I was rather struck by the similarity between the two Bills in that a great deal of debate on that Bill focused on what would happen if these powers were given to a Government and then a Government of a hue you did not like came in and exercised them. When I was thinking about that, I was thinking: what if we had a Green Government? Would I want operational independence for the UK Infrastructure Bank? If your Lordships’ House manages to get the objectives right as well as the composition of the board, which we will get to later, I believe we should have operational independence for the UK Infrastructure Bank because democratic control is the issue. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, said, this is a public bank, so any steps being taken by the Government in directing it should be subject to full parliamentary scrutiny of a broader and more detailed kind than that which the Minister referred to earlier.

That brings me to my Amendment 68. In responding to some of the earlier debate, the Minister in a way made a point for me because, as the first amendment in this group states, this bank has a double bottom line. Its responsibilities include social justice and the climate emergency. Indeed, under a Green Government I might like to rename it the “Just Transition Bank” because that is essentially what it is setting out to try to do.

The Treasury is the ministry in control of this bank. What does it know about climate, nature, poverty, inequality or regional disparities? The very nature of the Treasury is that it is focused on money and what is called the economy—that mysterious thing outside human existence. What does it know about farming or health, despite the fact that it has a dictatorship over the actions of all the departments that cover them?

My original plan, which I alluded to at Second Reading, was to take the bank out of the Treasury’s hands entirely and put it in the hands of the departments that know about the things that it is supposed to be trying to do. However, the Public Bill Office—and I thank it for its patience and assistance on this—told me that that was, technically, practically impossible. The phrase “A Green Government wouldn’t start here” crossed my lips, but the Public Bill Office came up with Amendment 68, which would ensure that the Treasury fully consults the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change—I admit to something of a Freudian slip and apologise to your Lordship for the error in this amendment, because proposed new paragraph (b) should, of course, refer to the Secretary of State for BEIS, although whether we should have a department entirely dedicated to tackling the climate emergency is a question to raise on another day—and the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

I support the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness for that very reason. We should have a Department for Energy and Climate Change.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

I thank the noble Lord for his support for my somewhat unintended amendment.

We come back to: what is this bank for and what is the economy for? The bank is supposed to serve the people of this land. The departments that focus on the people and the climate emergency this bank is serving should surely have an explicit statutory role in oversight. I have not been in your Lordships’ House that long, and I cannot count the number of times I have seen a Minister stand at the Dispatch Box and say in response to a question, “Well, I’d love to do that, but the Treasury —” and roll their eyes. That is the way the country is being run, and it needs to change. This could be a small way to step in that direction.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, support a separate Department of Energy and Climate Change, but for a slightly different reason because I think we would then allow BEIS to focus on what it should be doing, which is supporting British industry, productivity and growth in the economy without being distracted by a lot of other stuff.

I want to pick up the point about the extent to which the framework document should be reflected in the Bill. It is quite normal for public sector bodies to have framework documents—they are often called a memorandum of understanding—by their side. That has not been invented just for this organisation. They usually contain a lot of really quite mundane stuff such as following the Green Book and Managing Public Money and a lot of detail about interactions between the sponsoring department and the body. This framework document in many ways goes beyond what you would normally expect to find in such a document, which is why I and others are querying where the balance should be, but I do not think we should look towards importing the whole of the framework document into the Bill or having some kind of approval process because much of it will deal with rather mundane, day-to-day stuff. The problem here is that this framework document has got rather grand and includes things that ought to be within Parliament’s purview. I am sure we will be taking this area forward, and I hope we will have a bit of balance and perspective about ensuring that we do not have statutory overreach.

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[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I would gently challenge the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, on jobs. I have long experience in the far south-west—a deprived area that needs levelling up—of European funding, which always had jobs as its major output. The challenge is not normally jobs because, in the sort of areas that need levelling up, the jobs created by employers are normally low-grade jobs, so that is what you get. The real challenge, particularly on a levelling-up agenda in deprived areas, is actually careers, productivity and high-paid jobs. It is very easy to fill in a jobs return on jobs that are not very skilled or high grade, whereas we need to improve and raise the whole base level. I understand exactly what he is trying to get but I think it is a fundamental problem that we look at these issues in relation to grants, funding regimes, loans or other such systems. That is just a comment from my experience in Cornwall and the far south-west.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

At the risk of ganging up on the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, which is not my intention, I would add a supplementary comment to his statement. When we talk about job creation, people will say they are building a new supermarket and that it will create 150 new jobs, but there is never any attempt to account for how many jobs will be destroyed by that development. It surely should be about net jobs.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

I am sorry; I have tried to be consensual in my responses. My understanding from Her Majesty’s Government—though I am beginning to be somewhat doubtful of this—is that, post Brexit, we were going to do things better than Europe did. I have constantly referred to well-paid, important, skilled jobs, wherever possible in my various amendments.

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[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

My Lords, I will be very brief in speaking to my Amendment 46, but first, let me say that I support the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer. Frankly, they seem like normal, good practice and it is almost surprising that they are not already in the Bill.

Amendment 46 is very simple. The bank’s activities will cover the whole of the UK, including the devolved nations. I welcome that—it is a really good thing—but while allowing the bank to operate in the devolved nations, the Bill gives absolutely no right at all to the devolved Governments to have any say in how it operates. I would be completely opposed to giving veto rights or anything of that nature, but I do think it would be appropriate to allow them at least some input into the bank’s direction. As someone who lives in Scotland, I am not the world’s greatest fan of the Scottish Government, but devolution is a fact and we have to live with it and work with it. The devolved Governments have perfectly reasonable interests in how investment is directed in their countries.

It seems to me that the easiest way to achieve this is just to allow the devolved Governments to be represented on the board of the bank. Amendment 46 would simply allow the devolved Governments each to appoint a director to the board. That way, they would have the ability to represent their legitimate interests without introducing any veto rights or anything of that nature, which, obviously, we should avoid.

If we want to keep this union together, we need to recognise that the devolved Governments have legitimate interests, and we need to try to work together.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, and to find myself in broad agreement with him on a number of areas of this Bill, if not always on the details—as with our views on the Scottish Government, which, of course, has Green Ministers among its members.

My amendment is rather similar to his, although perhaps not quite so expansive on the devolved Administrations. It says that

“a director must be appointed”

jointly by

“the governments of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland”.

It specifies two other directors, one of which would be appointed by the Climate Change Committee. I am a little disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, is not in his place, as I would be interested in his view on that. The third director—there is a deep irony here, and I should point out that I tabled this amendment some 10 days ago—would jointly represent Natural England, Nature Scotland and Natural Resources Wales.

In a sense, this is another way of getting at the issue I was trying to get at earlier. The Treasury does not really have expertise on environmental and social issues and devolution, and the same can be said, often, of bankers. This is an attempt to ensure that the directors really do have that expertise.

However, events have forced me to reflect at this point on the fact that a lot of our earlier discussions were about the operational independence of the bank. It is rather telling that Natural England was, of course, an independent body, and over the last decade it has gradually lost its independence under the hold of Defra. It was deprived of its independent online presence and its own press office in 2012, and in 2018 its former chair, Andrew Sells, confirmed that the body is no longer independent.

It has emerged in the last week—buried deep in a consultative proposal that campaigners have only just uncovered—that the Government are consulting on dismantling Natural England. That has caused a great deal of concern but it is a real demonstration of so many points that noble Lords have been making about how Governments can have structures that are supposed to hold them to account and somehow, through a process over a decade or so, effectively dissolve those structures.

This is an attempt to deal with the issues that the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, has already covered well. I also point to the Second Reading speech from the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. I will not go through it in detail but what he said there was that the bank needs to work with the grain of devolved Governments, regional and local government. Looking at this amendment now, I wonder if I should not also have put “a representative of local government” in it, but that is something to think about for Report.

UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [HL]

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 4th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in particular to my Amendment 9, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for his support. I very much agree that climate change means that we cannot be building new roads, although big issues of air pollution are of course also addressed in this group.

I have to begin, since I do not get the chance to do it very often, by commending the Government on their amendment on energy efficiency. It demonstrates the sentiment of our debate in Committee—and indeed throughout the House and the country—and shows that campaigning really does work. Let us see lots more of it.

Essentially, I agree with everything the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, have said, so I will not repeat those points. However, we are increasingly hearing from the Government about the importance of biodiversity and the state of nature. Indeed, I had the pleasure recently of attending an event at the Groundswell Regenerative Agriculture Show & Conference, at which the Government and Members of this House and the other place expressed their concerns and spoke of the importance they place on restoring nature. Surely, the Infrastructure Bank should be explicitly directed to do that.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said, we are talking about sending a message to the bank and to the country about the importance of biodiversity in nature, and we can also look to the international stage. We see reports expressing grave concern about the state of the COP 15 biodiversity talks, and the entire nature community is screaming out for leadership in those talks. Clearly, as the chair of COP 26, it should be our responsibility to lead the way. As the noble Baroness said, if the Government are saying, “We already mean this anyway”, what is the harm in including such a provision in the Bill and sending that message out to the international community as well as to the country?

On the circular economy amendment, in Committee I tabled an amendment calling for a reduction in resource use. In the interests of efficiency and time—and given that I was not getting many positive signals from the Government—I did not table it this time, but I think the Government will come back to this issue so that we can make at least some progress on it. Explicit support for a circular economy, which is a necessary but not a sufficient condition, given that we continue to treat the planet as a mine and a dumping ground, is essential in order to see some progress. We will certainly see the other place pushing on the question of resource use.

My Amendment 9 is a modest amendment, and it is perhaps worth making clear what I mean by it. I am very happy if the Government want to look at using different terminology, but I point out that what I mean by “roads” is major stretches of roadway. I do not mean tracks up to new onshore windfarms, government enthusiasm for which we are finally seeing signs of in the media, which is greatly encouraging. If the Government wish to find another form of wording, I point out that, clearly, what I am referring to is major road infrastructure. As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, the climate emergency does not allow that. This issue crosses over with the clean air amendments in this group, and the issues of disadvantage that we are going to discuss in the next one. Broadly speaking, air quality is worst in the poorest, most disadvantaged areas of the country. New roads are the last thing those areas need, as they would make the air quality even worse.

To say that the Infrastructure Bank is not for roads but for mass transport should be considered uncontroversial. It is not my intention to put the amendment to a vote, but this is a debate that will continue in the other place. I commend all these amendments to your Lordships’ House.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 7 and 10 in my name, but before I do I join others in congratulating my noble friend the Minister on tabling the government amendment on energy efficiency. It speaks to an amendment that I and others tabled in Committee, and it is certainly welcome that it will now, rightly, be included in the Bill.

Amendment 7 would insert just three words: “nature-based solutions”. There is a lot in the Bill about climate and carbon, but the reality is, as noble Lords are well aware, whatever we do and must do on that front, we will still be left with a pressing, urgent need for nature-based solutions. As other noble Lords have mentioned, we have “roads” in the Bill. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has just pointed out, I do not think anybody would necessarily be against roads as a secondary, tertiary or lower-level aspect of an infrastructure project—to get to the shoreline for offshore wind, to give another example. However, that is at best a tertiary part of the bank’s investment, or of that particular infrastructure project, yet it is in the Bill. If “roads” can be there, surely “nature-based solutions” has at least an equal place in the Bill. Would my noble friend consider including “nature-based solutions” and, in exchange, taking “roads” out of the Bill? That would be a thoroughly good thing.

Finally, in similar terms, my Amendment 10 would insert “clean air”—perhaps one of the most significant, precious and essential parts of our infrastructure. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that it would not be difficult or controversial, and that it would be a thoroughly good thing, to have “clean air” on the face of our infrastructure bank Bill?

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[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 5 is in my name. I declare my interest as a project director working for Atkins and note that I am co-chair of the Midlands Engine APPG. First, I thank my supporters on this amendment; I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans for all his help in crafting it, and the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, for his support. My remarks are equally applicable to Amendment 12 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, to which I have added my name.

To briefly reiterate the issue, the current levelling-up objective of the bank, set out in Clause 2, is not clear enough to articulate the levelling-up purpose of the bank in the Bill. Indeed, I would question what the words

“support local and regional economic growth”

really add to the Bill. Almost any conceivable infrastructure investment will meet this objective for the area in which it sits.

As the Minister has previously stated, we have the strategic steer in the form of a letter from the Chancellor, which clearly sets out levelling-up objectives. However, levelling up is a long-term, generational project—as is this bank—and the strategic steer will not bind it in the long term. Ultimately, if nothing is done because of the lack of clarity in the Bill, the bank and the Government may drift away from the levelling-up purpose expressed in the strategic steer and may not undertake the vital work of helping disadvantaged areas in the long term.

This is particularly the case because the effects of agglomeration work against infrastructure spend outside the metropolis. The economic return is simply much better in areas that already perform well, so those projects have a much better chance of proceeding. Inequality becomes entrenched and self-fulfilling. That is why it is so important that, for an infrastructure bank still focused on making a return, levelling-up objectives are clear in the Bill. This can be solved via the simple amendment we have set out. It takes on board feedback from the Minister in Committee to avoid any complicated definitions of disadvantaged areas. It does this by using similar comparative wording to a recent government amendment to the Subsidy Control Act. The amendment would mean that Clause 2(3)(b) read:

“to support regional and local economic growth, with an emphasis on reducing social or economic disadvantages within the United Kingdom.”

I am very grateful to the Minister and her team for meeting me and for their efforts in investigating this issue. I know that the Minister is concerned about legal challenge and whether the wording would cause the bank to be too cautious in its approach, but this wording captures the very fundamentals of levelling up. Given the guidance for the bank in the strategic steer, all its investments should be compliant with the wording in any case, so I do not believe that this would limit the bank in any way.

Amendment 12 provides the same clarity in a slightly different way, by ensuring that the first mission in the levelling-up White Paper—the key mission of relevance for the bank—is written into the bank’s objectives. Ultimately, both amendments address the same issue: we want to be confident that there is some permanence to the bank’s objectives on levelling up and focusing on disadvantaged areas. The strategic steer and a letter to the bank do not offer this permanence, so I hope the Government will agree that something needs to be done to ensure that the bank will deliver in the long term for disadvantaged areas, deliver for the levelling-up agenda and fulfil its potential to make a real difference to the lives of people in those left behind communities all across the country.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale. It was particularly useful that he spoke before me because I have taken some of the words that he and his supporters put down in their amendment but made an additional change, taking out the words “economic growth”. But I agree entirely with everything the noble Lord just said about the need to focus on reducing disparities and tackling economic and social disadvantages. As he said, that takes the wording from the Government’s own approach in another place and it would be very hard for the Government to argue against that.

I argued extensively in Committee about why economic growth as a target in its own right has failed and, indeed, is undeliverable, because you cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet. I will not go over those arguments again now, but I think it is very clear from the fact that we are back here again, after an extensive debate in Committee from all sides of your Lordships’ House, simply saying that the bank will work for regional and local growth. As was said in Committee, that could be regional and local growth in Chelsea and the wealthiest 10 wards in the whole country, which is surely not the purpose, and it therefore needs to be clarified in the Bill. As was said in our earlier debate when we were talking about the environment, we have seen acknowledgement of the need to change the Bill already. This is surely another crucial change.

I was pleased to attach my name to Amendment 12 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and backed by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer. This is again putting levelling up in the Bill. It is what the Government say the Bill is for. Surely, it has to be specified in it.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I am going to be exceedingly brief because so much has been said which I support. I want to make a couple of comments on Amendment 12 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and others, that I have been pleased to sign. I want to make a point that I think has not been hit on. It is really important because it signals to those who put together projects and then turn to the investment bank and look for resources and funding that they are going to have to meet tests such as improving productivity and making sure that they are delivering well-paid jobs.

Putting that in the Bill would take it away from being a passive measure by which the bank looks at and decides whether to support projects and moves it into the active category. Those who are going out and investing will look closely at whether they are delivering against those various tests. There is so much that is good in the various amendments within this group—I very much support my colleague on Amendment 2—but I particularly wanted to underscore the message-signalling that is deeply inherent in Amendment 12.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it was not my intention to speak on this group but, given that all the non-government speakers have been from the other side of the House, I felt I should offer an argument from this side of the House that is perhaps 180 degrees opposite to that presented by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, but, none the less, makes an argument for either Amendment 6 or Amendment 24.

The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, suggested that she preferred private bankers to public bankers. Private bankers have been left to provide the direction for our economy and society over the past few decades and look where that has got us: we are having to talk from all sides of the House about the urgent need to level up and to tackle poverty, inequality, our climate emergency and the nature crisis. Therefore, we need to make sure that the bank is not crowding out private finance. If it is, it is spending money in the wrong places. It needs to be doing things that are innovative and different from what we have been doing up to now. That is why I encourage either the mover of Amendment 6 or those speaking to Amendment 24 to consider testing the opinion of House, and I offer them Green support.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, my motivation here is somewhat different: I want to see the bank move along the risk spectrum. There is a temptation, due to the structure of the bank, for it to stay within the range of fairly safe investments. It has to produce a return and it has a very small risk capital base, but I would like it to maximise that to move along the risk spectrum. I see no other way to accelerate the innovative technologies that we need, or development in disadvantaged areas where people have typically turned their backs, unless the bank is willing to take on that much higher risk profile. The various additionality amendments seem to create that kind of pressure to move UKIB much further down the risk spectrum than it might otherwise feel comfortable in doing, meaning that it therefore does not maximise the opportunities in front of it.

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[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

My Lords, briefly, I support Amendment 20 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas. It is self-evident that the bank’s board should have the experience and skills that the noble and learned Lord proposes in his amendment, rather than just being Treasury placemen. The success or failure of the bank in achieving its objectives will depend entirely on the experience of the people running it, so I urge the Minister to accept this very common-sense amendment.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I offer Green group support for Amendment 20, to which we would have attached our name had there been space.

In Committee, I suggested that the bank should not be in the hands of the Treasury at all. I got some expressions of interest but not enough support to bring it back on Report. However, it is clear that we need systems thinking, as I often say in your Lordships’ House. We need an approach that looks beyond the narrow growth in GDP to something broader and more holistic. This amendment is a step towards achieving that.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I speak on this group with some trepidation; I hope I do not show the lack of humility that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, has accused my department of. I will stand up for the Treasury: in my dealings with this group of public servants, they have been bright and suitably humble, trying to work in the best interests of the country.

I will take the amendments in reverse order. The amendment tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, as he explained, seeks to ensure that the bank’s board has the necessary expertise to deliver on its objectives. He is right to focus on the importance of the bank’s board in steering this nascent institution to deliver on its two wide-ranging objectives across the whole of the UK.

I reassure noble Lords that the bank’s board already contains a wealth of experience in infrastructure finance, policy-making, economics and green investments, across the public and private sectors. Collectively, its members have worked at similar national organisations, such as the Canada Infrastructure Bank, the UK Green Investment Bank and UK Export Finance, as well as leading financial services firms and central government departments. John Flint, the bank’s CEO, was chief executive of HSBC, and Annie Ropar was the CFO at the Canada Infrastructure Bank. So, in its infant form, it has already attracted some high-quality individuals to work there.

The bank’s non-executive directors were recruited in line with the guidelines set out by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments, and were selected based on the skills they could bring to the board to deliver on the bank’s mandate. These appointments could be audited by OCPA in due course. OCPA’s guidelines include a principle of merit, which means

“providing Ministers with a choice of high quality candidates, drawn from a strong, diverse field, whose skills, experiences and qualities have been judged to meet the needs of the public body or statutory office in question.”

As I have said in previous groups, in drafting this Bill, we are seeking to create a high-level framework within which the bank can operate, while providing for the longevity of its objectives. Therefore, given that appointments are already recruited in line with OCPA’s guidelines, which we expect OCPA to review and which include a principle of merit, I do not think it is necessary to add greater specificity to the Bill on this point. Including these provisions could be overburdensome and prevent the bank and Treasury hiring the most appropriate people for the roles.

I spoke about the recent appointments in Committee, so do not propose to do so in detail again, but I would be very surprised if the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, could find much fault with the appointees. He has also expressed an interest in the representation of the devolved Administrations and, as he spoke about on the previous group, in making sure that the board and the bank command the confidence of all four nations in the UK. As I said to him before and will happily say again, commanding that confidence is central to how the bank has gone about its business. The skills of the board will adequately represent the needs of all four nations, although, as I said on the previous group, specifics in that area are not necessarily a discussion for now, as they are part of the process of legislative consent. I therefore hope that the noble and learned Lord does not move his amendment when it is reached.

The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, seeks to ensure that the bank always has a representative of the workers on its board. The UK Corporate Governance Code already states that a company should have one or a combination of a director appointed from the workforce, a formal workforce advisory panel or a designated non-executive director to facilitate engagement with the workforce. It also states that, if the board has not chosen one or more of these methods, it should explain what alternative arrangements are in place and why.

I give the noble Lord my absolute reassurance that the bank will comply with the UK Corporate Governance Code; however, as I have said, it is a nascent institution, with its board appointments made and the non-executive directors joining only recently. The bank has not yet had the opportunity to determine how it will meet this specific provision. It is currently establishing its governance and will report on its progress in its annual report and accounts. The noble Lord can expect an update there.

UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [HL]

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 14th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)]

I support the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, in her proposed amendment and congratulate her on her tenacity in pursuing this issue. She has achieved something notable, and I thank her very much indeed. Account being taken of nature-based solutions improves the Bill and, on that basis, I also congratulate the Minister. My noble friend has proved herself to be a listening Minister, and the Government have taken a very common-sense approach, which improves the Bill. It was previously a good Bill, and it is now a better Bill after changes made in this House and the approach of the Minister and the Government.

I do not propose to detain the House, except to say that I agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said in Committee and at Second Reading. I regret that we have not gone a bit further, but at least we have an improvement in this legislation. On that basis, I once again congratulate the Government.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I join in the congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, who is both a force for nature and a force of nature in your Lordships’ House. I thank everyone else who has joined in getting this progress on nature-based solutions, although we should not look at those solutions as an alternative to cutting our carbon emissions. Both those things have to be done.

I was not going to speak but, given something the Minister said in her introduction, I feel forced to ask her a question. In justifying the exclusion of “circular economy” in the Commons amendment, she said that it was “not a precise term”. Does the Treasury understand the term “circular economy” and its essential nature in delivering the sustainable society we need? If the Minister wants a source for this, I point to a government paper entitled, Circular Economy Package policy statement, from 30 July 2020, which was put out jointly with Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and which defined “circular economy” as

“keeping resources in use as long as possible, extracting maximum value from them, minimizing waste and promoting resource efficiency”.

Will the Minister confirm that the Treasury recognises that the circular economy is an acknowledged term and is urgently needed?

[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

My Lords, I wanted to thank the Government and to associate myself with the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. I thank them for their constructive engagement, which has allowed us to reach a satisfactory conclusion.

However, I thank the Government for listening in relation to a couple of other places. First, during the progress of the Bill through this House we had a lot of discussions about the position of the devolved Administrations and how they should be involved. While they have not gone as far as I should have liked, I welcome the amendments that have now been included and the constructive engagement that has obviously taken place with the devolved Administrations. That is a nice change from some of the things that we have seen with other legislation in the past.

Secondly, Amendment 8 is identical to an amendment that I tabled on Report, which shortens the reporting cycle to five years. My amendment was not accepted by the Government at that time. When I tabled it, it led to what I think was a unique achievement of being co-signed by both the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. That has not been achieved before or since. I said at the time that such a unique and powerful alliance should make the Government take that amendment seriously, so I am delighted and grateful that they have done so.