Infrastructure: Expenditure

Lord Flight Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deighton]

My Lords, first, it is necessary to clear up the numbers. There is a significant difference between public investment numbers and investment in infrastructure. Public investment includes huge investments in health and in defence, so there is a significant difference there. Also, if you look at the national infrastructure plan, you see that approximately 80% of the investment that we expect over the next 15 years in fact comes from the private markets and not from public capital expenditure.

[Lord Flight]

My Lords, the national infrastructure plan has identified some £200 billion of energy infrastructure investment and £200 billion of communication and transport infrastructure investment. What proportion of that total does the Minister estimate might be under way by the end of five years, and to what extent are any delays caused not by the absence of finance—where sovereign funds and others are willing to put up the money—but by planning and environmental legal constraints in this country?

[Lord Deighton]

I thank my noble friend for that question, which focuses us on the issues to do with accelerating the delivery of this very important programme. With respect to the proportion that will be under way within this Parliament, this Government have focused activity on the top 40 programmes and projects, which accounts for about £200 billion of the £400 billion my noble friend refers to. Approximately 20% of those projects are currently in construction, and we would expect that proportion, by 2015-16 and the end of this Parliament, to be approximately 50%. There is no question but that the gate that most constrains our ability to accelerate the stream of projects is to do with the variety of planning regulations that surround any major public infrastructure investment.