UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Noakes and Lord Teverson

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

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, we are in the final lap of Committee. I shall speak also to the three other amendments in this group in my name. Amendments 54 and 58 deal with who should carry out the periodic review of the UK Infrastructure Bank under Clause 9. Clause 9 says that the Treasury must carry out the review, and my two amendments change this to “a person or persons” who are independent of both the Treasury and the bank. At Second Reading, I spoke about how the Treasury was intertwined with the UK Infrastructure Bank and in effect calls all the shots. We have covered that ground again today and I will not repeat any of that now, but all that adds up to a fact of life: that the Treasury is very closely involved in the bank and is not and cannot be a dispassionate observer when it comes to appraising how well the bank has done. The Treasury should not, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, said earlier, be marking its own homework.

In my view, it is only right that an independent person should be appointed to appraise the effectiveness and impact of the bank. Indeed, it may well be that the effectiveness or impact of the bank has been helped or hindered by the Treasury, and we certainly want to know about that. That would not emerge if the review were carried out by the Treasury. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, has a more elaborate version of independent review in his Amendment 63, and I look forward to hearing what he has to say on it, but I wonder whether an annual report on performance is getting a bit too much like micro-oversight of the UK Infrastructure Bank.

Turning to Amendments 59 and 62, which address the timing of the Clause 9 reviews, I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Vaux of Harrowden, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, respectively, in respect of these amendments. Under Clause 9, the Treasury has up to 10 years to produce its first report and then has to produce reports at not more than seven-year intervals after that. My amendment calls for a first report within four years and Amendment 62 calls for subsequent reports at least every three years. I chose four years as the first period, rather than the three years called for by Amendment 60 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, because I thought that a report after three years of operation would be sensible and would allow a bit of time beyond the three years to actually make the report. But there is no magic in either three or four years: the main point is that 10 years followed by seven years is far too long. I beg to move.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, when the Green Investment Bank was privatised and we dealt with legislation to do that, we in this House looked at ways in which we could be sure that, with that change of ownership, whatever it would be, it remained true to its constitution, its values and objectives in that private situation. It was subsequently bought by Macquarie, which still owns the Green Investment Bank, now called the Green Investment Group. The Government at the time—I remember going through this with the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe—were enlightened enough to set up a green share held by a non-profit organisation called the Green Purposes Company, of which I am a trustee, and therefore I declare my interest in that.

I take the noble Baroness’s point that my amendment is slightly more complicated and maybe slightly more micro, but it is there for a different reason. That company was set up in a similar way to the way described in this amendment, and what we do in the Green Purposes Company is certainly not to act in any way prior to investment—we are not part of any investment committee; we do not get involved in that. What we do, at the end of a year, is to assess whether those investments that have been made by what is now the Green Investment Group comply with its green objectives and the mission of the bank.

With the co-operation of Macquarie, that process has worked very well. As I said, we assess performance against the bank’s objectives and have four meetings a year with senior management—they are optional; we just decided to do that operationally—and then publish a letter in the annual report of the bank, making that assessment of the investment in general. It is a fairly short letter, but it provides total transparency and a completely independent view of whether the bank has met those objectives through its investments during the year.

Having agreed to and implemented this model, we have talked to Treasury officials about it in the past—it has been considered and, I think, welcomed by the Environmental Audit Committee at the other end—and to the Finance Minister John Glen. It is a successful assessment method; it is transparent, tried and tested and is a model laid down by the Government themselves. This is a really good way forward and I would very much like the Minister to consider it as a way that we can make sure there is independent, regular assessment, post investment, of how the bank is performing without getting into too much of the micro area in the report. I agree that, if that was too much part of the reporting structure, it could be onerous and reduce transparency.