Infrastructure and Projects Authority

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Wednesday 10th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord has given a very interesting answer, but he did not address the central question that my noble friend asked: what did Ministers do in response to those red/amber ratings in this case?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

As I said in my initial reply, the reviews are primarily aimed at the project leaders. They give them advice on how to identify risks and take mitigating action to ensure that those risks are circumvented to ensure that the project hits the relevant milestones. There might be occasions when Ministers have to intervene, for example, if some legislative change is needed or if fresh estimates and more money are required from the Treasury, but for the most part the reviews are aimed not at Ministers but at departmental leaders. As someone who has been a Minister, if I was in charge of a project that had a red tag attached to it by the IPA, I would take a very close interest in its progress and make sure that it was delivered.