UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [HL]

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 24th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this Second Reading debate and I congratulate the Minister on the manner in which she introduced it.

It is often more helpful to look at the practical to see how something works, rather than what is potentially set out on paper. To that end, I ask my noble friend to give the House some details on the offshore wind deal that the bank did recently. What made this deal unattractive to the market and applicable to the UK Infrastructure Bank? Similarly, what analysis sits behind the proposed crowd-in figure of £18 billion. In many ways, it strikes me as somewhat conservative. Also, what analysis sits behind 20 basis points in terms of advantageous lending? Why is 20 basis points considered the sweet spot to attract people to this vehicle rather than others?

The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, rightly alighted on the question of risk. As other noble Lords have commented, this will be critical to how the bank operates, succeeds and is seen in broader circles. So I ask my noble friend to set out some commentary on the risk appetite of the bank; how will it differ from other existing lenders?

On crowding in, how will the bank enable angel investors and other sources of investment to be drawn into this model, as set against existing models? Similarly, what analysis has been done to ensure that crowding out will not be a feature of this approach?

On operational independence, I ask my noble friend to clarify whether the bank is free to lend and conduct other activities, such as guarantees, at any level and that there will be no Treasury involvement in the quantum of any business or deals the bank does.

As other noble Lords have commented, there is a lot to be said on definitions. Would the Minister not agree that having nature-based solutions in the definitions of infrastructure in the Bill would be a thoroughly good thing, not just in light of Dasgupta and COP, but closer to home? I gently direct her to the recent report on nature-based solutions of your Lordships’ Science and Technology Committee, on which I was privileged to serve.

Finally, could my noble friend confirm that, if the plan is not clear, there is certainly a possibility that the route to privatisation is already seeded in this legislation? To that end, what is the proposed timeline and what would the bank’s book look like at that stage?

We clearly have an infrastructure challenge, and thus opportunity, in this country. If the bank can play a positive role in that, it is all to the good. But does my noble friend not agree that, while economic infrastructure is critical, it fails to achieve a significant part of its objective and transform our nation in the way it might if it is not also firmly and fully tied to social infrastructure?

UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [HL]

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

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

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is pleasure to take part in this first group of amendments on the UK Infrastructure Bank. I support Amendment 1 tabled by my noble friend Lady Noakes. When my noble friend the Minister responds, will she fully explain why the bank would not wish to come under the auspices of the financial regulators—the FCA and the PRA—and why HM Treasury would not want it to do so?

My Amendments 38 and 42 have the same purpose: to underscore in the Bill the bank’s operational independence from HM Treasury. Amendment 38 would put on the face of the Bill that the bank will be able to lend to whatever level and by whatever means it chooses without having to have recourse to HM Treasury. Does the Minister agree that this is implicit in the Bill and that to have this statement in the Bill would make absolute sense?

On Amendment 42, I agree entirely with the point alluded to by my noble friend Lady Noakes. The reason I bring Amendment 42 forward again is to further assert in the Bill that the bank should have the ability to avail itself of the capital markets. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that, again, having this provision in the Bill would clearly underscore the operational independence of the bank, which is espoused in all the briefing notes on the Bill?

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, this group of amendments addresses two entirely different issues, as the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, identified. I rather fear that in the minds of the Treasury they are the same issue, which is slightly unfortunate but will probably explain a great deal of our debate today.

I will first address Amendment 42 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, which I very much support. This would allow the Bank to

“borrow on the international capital markets”,

putting that on the face of the Bill. We have a very small bank set-up here with only £4.2 billion in risk capital, which means that, for years, it will be able to do relatively little and will have to do it in such a way as to get substantial commercial returns to build up its equity base. That will allow it to grow and do rather larger things—but, since this is an important instrument for the whole goal of levelling up, you would think that impact and the need to act rapidly would be at the forefront of the Government’s thinking.

Obviously, being able to go to the international capital markets to access capital in the way that the European Investment Bank and KfW in Germany do—that is very well established—would be important. Also, given that there will be a green purpose to much that the bank does, it is important to note that one of the biggest movers in providing green financing has been the decision of the European Investment Bank as it goes to the capital markets to raise climate and sustainability awareness bonds to jet-propel finance into those markets. It is utterly beyond me to understand why those powers have not been given to the UK Infrastructure Bank; perhaps the Minister will explain.

Almost more importantly, perhaps, I want to address the issues raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. I very much support his notion that we must find a way to incorporate the senior managers and certification regime. Frankly, it has been quite a weak straw in the hands of the FCA. I do not want to entertain folks here for too long by going through the instances in which the FCA should have used it but has declined to do so, or has used it very weakly; but at least it is something to make sure we have real responsibility sited where it should be in senior management.

I want to pick up a rather different issue, which was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, only in passing: whistleblowing. I will talk about this in more depth in the group of amendments beginning with my Amendment 30 about the operational independence of this bank, but when we get later into the Bill we will find that a framework has been established allowing the shareholder—in other words, the Treasury and the Government—to give directions, both specific and general, to the bank. The framework elaborates on that but recognises that the board of directors of the bank may well look at these specific directions and wish to reject them. The grounds that may be given, not in a rejection but a “reservation notice” to the shareholders, include infringement of

“the requirements of propriety or regularity”

or various other things including on “value for money” or “strategic objectives” and so on; we can go into that later. In the two sections that I want to address, a reservation notice can be sent on grounds of infringement of “propriety or regularity”, or of being

“of questionable feasibility or … unethical”.

In that case, the shareholder—the Treasury, or the Government, in effect—can send a notice to the bank overriding its letter of reservation, forcing it to go ahead with the activity, even if it is considered by the bank to be unethical. The bank is supposed to provide a written direction, which, when you first read this, looks as though it will be published. However, very carefully written into the framework is the phrase

“published (unless the Shareholder has directed in writing to the Company that the matter must be kept confidential).”

I think we can guarantee that any direction that is unethical or infringes on propriety will come with an instruction to keep it confidential. At that point, for the public and Parliament to know, we rely on whistle- blowers.

That brings me to the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. First, directors are not covered by the Public Interest Disclosure Act anyway. Senior employees would be, but to have any protection to be able to blow the whistle they would have to go to a regulator to make a protected disclosure. There is no regulator, therefore there is no mechanism for protected disclosure.

I want noble Lords to understand the jeopardy in which those directors or senior executives might find themselves. I suspect they will have been asked to sign some version of a non-disclosure agreement—it has many different names; I always tussle with the Government, because it turns out they have done it under a different name, such as a confidentiality agreement, but it is the same thing. There is even some talk of extending the scope of the Official Secrets Act, which could creep into this as well. I also noticed that the directors—I am sure those who have been appointed are excellent people—really would be taking steps of jeopardy if they blew the whistle, because most are making their careers as advisers to government or as chairs or directors of government-related entities, so they have a great deal of jeopardy at hand.

If this is unregulated, there is no mechanism for disclosure, even where actions within the view of the directors or senior employees of the bank infringe on propriety or are unethical. I would like the Minister to explain why the Government decided that that framework should be in place. I should also like her confirmation of whether there are non-disclosure agreements or their equivalent. If she cannot at this moment, by the time we get to the group beginning with Amendment 30 she will have had the opportunity to consult the Box. It will be a yes or no answer. I am certain we must get an answer either way.

--- Later in debate ---

As we and the Minister know, it is always very tempting to treat these Bills as a Christmas tree, adding things on all the time. However, among these amendments, we have resisted that quite well in that we have the circular economy, do no harm, biodiversity and nature-based solutions. Those are the areas that really need to change in the Bill, and I hope that the Minister will be able to come back and reassure us on them.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this second group and to agree with pretty much everything that has been said so far.

I will speak to Amendment 15 in my name, which seeks simply to insert “nature- based solutions” in the definition of infrastructure in the Bill. For every £1 invested in peatland restoration there is a return of £4.60, and for every £1 invested in woodland there is a return of £2.80. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that in both examples that is a multiple greater than what the bank is seeking to get as set out in its aspirations?

Similarly, as has eloquently been said with regard to climate and nature-based renewal, there is an economic boon to be had if we have nature-based solutions in the Bill for the bank to clearly be able to invest in: some £50 billion for the UK economy by 2050 and, with regard to levelling up, over 100,000 jobs.

Can my noble friend say whether the bank is able to invest in infrastructure—in this instance, nature-based solutions—in UK overseas territories? A number of things can be done there. Just one example is mangrove replanting, which can have a significant impact on addressing the current climate emergency and more impact than some of the projects that can be done alongside in the United Kingdom. Can the bank invest in such infrastructure projects in UK overseas territories?

I gently point my noble friend to a report from your Lordships’ Science and Technology Committee, on which I was lucky to serve, on nature-based solutions. It clearly sets out the advantages to be had from such investments, but also the criticality, has been said across your Lordships’ House. Even if we do everything towards the reduction and eventual eradication of carbon, we must still undertake nature-based solutions. To this end, with the economic, social and environmental benefits to be had, does my noble friend agree that it makes complete sense to have nature-based solutions as part of the definition of infrastructure in the Bill?

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [HL]

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

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

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

I declare my interest as president of the Rural Coalition and shall speak to my Amendment 57; I can be fairly brief. This amendment would require the Treasury to rural-proof the bank’s activities as part of its review every seven years. I shall not go over what I said on my earlier amendment as I have already referred to some of the case for rural-proofing. It is very important. It already exists as a tool to ensure that policymakers and analysts assess the effectiveness of their policies across rural areas. All government departments are subject to it, with the aim of embedding the principle that rural communities must be adequately considered when developing policy. The UK Infrastructure Bank ought not to be exempt from this as it is wholly owned by the Treasury.

Even then, the precise nature of the rural-proofing contained in this amendment is far weaker than the guidance to which most government departments are subject. Rather than require rural communities to be suitably considered in investment decisions, this amendment simply places a duty to review any disparate or adverse impacts or discrimination towards rural areas with respect to the bank’s activities. This would offer a framework for the Treasury to judge UKIB’s activities so that rural communities are adequately accounted for as part of its review. If rural-proofing requirements are good enough for the Treasury, they are more than apt to cover UKIB. This amendment would help to reassure rural communities that their concerns will be considered by UKIB and that at a minimum they will not be negatively impacted and will, we hope, be supported by the bank. When the Minister responds, I hope she will be able to offer some reassurance that the activities of the UK Infrastructure Bank are already covered by the current rural-proofing guidance to which the Treasury is subject. If they are not, how will the Government ensure that the bank will be properly rural-proofed in a similar manner to all other government departments?

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

I shall speak to my three amendments in this group, which all concern reporting requirements for the bank. Amendment 64 takes us back to inclusive by design and asks HMT to produce a report within six months on how the bank is achieving it in its investment and to look across the whole of the UK infrastructure and put a plan together for how all of it can be made inclusive. Does the Minister agree that infrastructure investments which are not inclusive would not only fail the public sector equality duty and thousands, potentially millions, of people but should de facto also fail the economic test set for all the bank’s investment?

On Amendment 65, perhaps we should feel positive because crowding out has already encouraged the crowding in of three amendments on this area. My regret on my amendment is that I have put it in the singular rather than suggest the continuous reporting requirement. As other noble Lords have set out, it is a fundamental issue for the bank. To that end, will the Minister reiterate what is said in the blurb on the bank about what multiple can be returned on investments? More than that, as real investments have now been made by the bank, what multiple and what actual level of funds have been crowded into those investments?

Returning to my Amendment 15, I remind my noble friend that, when it comes to nature-based solutions, investments in peat projects return £4.60 to the pound while those in woodland projects return £2.80 to the pound. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that both these levels are above what the bank is setting as its multiple return on investments made?

My final amendment, Amendment 66, is very brief; it simply asks for a report to be placed on the rate of interest that the bank determines to charge. Can my noble friend share some of the detail underpinning the basis points that have been determined at this stage for the bank’s investment level? How will that sit alongside other investment funds, and how will it compare with where previous funding would have come from, such as the Public Works Loan Board, et cetera? How has that interest rate been arrived at? Will a report be placed within six months of the passing of this Act on how it has run in that period?

UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [HL]

Lord Holmes of Richmond 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?

[Lord McDonald of Salford (CB)]

My Lords, the House this afternoon represents one of the Prime Minister’s favourite metaphors: a nest of singing birds. Everybody who has spoken agrees with each other; I agree with everything that has already been said, but particularly with what my noble friend Lady Hayman has said. I have added my name to her Amendment 1, and I will make just two additional points to the ones she made.

First, the Government agree that nature, nature recovery and nature-based solutions are important, and they say that all of that is encompassed within the Bill as drafted. But if nature is not mentioned on the face of the Bill, it will always look secondary; it will always nest behind climate. It will not have the same prominence or importance, yet all the facts suggest that the biodiversity crisis is at least as urgent as the climate crisis. These two things, according to the facts and the evidence, deserve to be side by side. If they are not, the bank and others will draw obvious conclusions.

Secondly, the only point I have heard made for why there is resistance to having nature on the face of the Bill is that there are not really any projects ready to go. My answer to that is: so what? This Bill is setting the course for the years ahead. It does not matter that there is not something ready to go in the next few months, because these projects will surely come. One issue that has detained your Lordships’ House time and again over the last year has been water quality and the fact that water companies are dumping sewage hundreds of thousands of times a year into our rivers and the sea. It is easy to imagine a project on water quality that would not really be about climate but would be all about nature. Surely that would deserve to be supported by the UK Infrastructure Bank. So I ask the Minister to reconsider one last time.

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Moved by

[Lord Holmes of Richmond]

6: Clause 2, page 1, line 22, at end insert—
“(4A) Before making any investment decision, the Bank must ensure that the principle of additionality is met.(4B) The principle of additionality is that—(a) all activities make a contribution which is beyond what is available or is otherwise absent from the market,(b) all activities do not crowd out the private sector, and(c) all activities have effects that encourage private sector funding to a multiple specified by regulations made by the Treasury.”

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[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to open this group of amendments and to move my Amendment 6. This amendment boils down to just one word, which predates the investment principles of the bank, the objectives of the bank, the strategy of the bank, the framework document of the bank and everything else associated with the bank: additionality. That is the bank’s raison d'être—no additionality, no bank.

As mentioned in the first group of amendments, we have “roads” in the Bill but nothing about additionality. My Amendment 6 would seek to set out exactly what additionality means, how it covers crowding out as well as crowding in, and what multiple Treasury should set on that crowding in.

Government Amendment 23 is purely an amendment to review what the bank has done on crowding in after seven years. It says nothing on crowding out, hence why I support Amendment 24 in the name of my noble friend Lady Noakes, which I will say no more about.

My Amendment 6 covers both the end-point—the review—and the beginning, the mission the bank needs to be on. It is all well and good to have a review at the end of 10 years, or now seven, but without Amendment 6 the review is just the spectre of an individual walking backwards into the future, wringing hands about what the bank has done, either positively in achieving additionality or negatively. Although a review is significant and important, it always arrives a little too late to influence what has just happened.

It is critical that additionality is in the Bill for the benefit of the bank and for the private sector, which would have the confidence to know that the bank would operate to the threshold of additionality, which would have to be achieved or that specific investment would not be entered into. If the Minister cannot accept my amendment, would she commit to meeting with me between Report and Third Reading to look at what we can do to get additionality in the Bill to strengthen the position of the bank, to make projects far more likely to crowd in and not crowd out funding and, ultimately, to benefit everything we are trying to do in this infrastructure space? I beg to move.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 24 in this group, which is an amendment to the Minister’s Amendment 23. It is always rather strange speaking to an amendment to an amendment when the amendment itself has not been spoken to—but I will do my best.

First, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond on his Amendment 6. It is well drafted and encompasses what we understand by additionality in the context of the operations of the UKIB. In Committee, it was widely agreed that additionality was so important that it should be in the Bill. I think it was also agreed that the boundary between what is in this Bill and is in other documents outside the Bill, including the framework document which is not even referred to in the Bill, has been set in the wrong place. When I say that the Committee agreed these things, I do not suggest that the Government agreed, but the vast majority of the Committee was aligned on these matters.

The Minister has been generous with her time with noble Lords, and I thank her for the meetings she arranged and for her letter of last week. She gets a gold star for effort, but I am afraid that that is not matched for content. On additionality, my noble friend claimed that the absence of an agreed definition in the Bill could stop it developing over time. That is nonsense. Additionality, as a basic concept, has barely shifted in the many years that I have been involved in public sector matters. The essence of it is about, and always has been about, something that should occur that would not otherwise have occurred but for the particular intervention or action. It is a universal principle that can be adapted to a number of circumstances.

I then suggested to my noble friend the Minister that, rather than try to produce a specific definition, she could put a high-level definition in the Bill and take a Treasury power to issue guidance to UKIB. That too was brushed aside. The Treasury likes to keep stuff in documents, such as the framework document, which it alone controls. I remind noble Lords that, as my noble friend the Minister informed us in Committee, the framework document is not even legally binding.

Nevertheless, I recognised that the Treasury is something of an immovable object on this issue, so I decided that it would be better to pursue the Minister’s offer of a way forward and include additionality issues in the periodic reports which are required by Clause 9. I thought that half a loaf would be better than no loaf, but I have to say that Amendment 23, which my noble friend has tabled, is a serious disappointment. It represents no more than a quarter of a loaf.

Amendment 23 adds an additional reporting requirement to Clause 9 but it is a lop-sided approach to additionality. Its focus is on the extent to which UKIB’s investments in projects have encouraged additional investments in those projects. It therefore will cover the extent to which projects have enabled crowding in, but it does not explicitly cover crowding out, which has always been my biggest concern, because a bank with a high capital ratio and a low cost of capital can easily outcompete private sector financing. I do not believe that if UKIB were to finance the whole of a transaction to the complete exclusion of the private sector in circumstances where 100% private finance could have been obtained, it would be captured by my noble friend’s amendment—it would not come close to being captured by my noble friend’s amendment. Such a transaction would not have encouraged or discouraged private sector finance; it would have bypassed it completely. That is why my Amendment 24 refers to investments having been made by UKIB

“despite an adequate supply of private sector financing”.

My noble friend the Minister will doubtless say that it is not in UKIB’s strategic plan to do transactions without private sector financing. It was never in the strategic plans of the European Investment Bank to crowd out private sector financing, but it did it anyway, in collusion with private sector borrowers, who were quite happy to take soft loans from public sector lenders who were much easier to deal with than hard-nosed real bankers in real banks.

My noble friend the Minister has also referred in correspondence to the impact of the Subsidy Control Act, which became law earlier this year. I have to say that the Act, which refers to subsidy decisions, sits rather uneasily with the practice of doing investment deals in the context of a bank. I accept that at a high level it would apply to UKIB. I just think that the language is very difficult to interpret in the context of what UKIB would do. My main concern is that there would never be an enforcement action against UKIB because the crowded-out private sector financiers are exactly the same people who want to be invited to any crowding-in party. It simply will not be in their interest to try to get the Act enforced against UKIB.

For all these reasons, I am very disappointed that this Bill, which I have never regarded as a shining example of Conservative economic values in any event, is going to ignore the concept of crowding out, which ought to be something dear to any Conservative Government’s heart. I shall not move my amendment when we reach it in the Marshalled List, but I live in hope that there are still some Conservatives in the Treasury who might have a change of heart before this Bill reaches the other place.

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[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I join my noble friend Lady Noakes in applauding Amendment 6 in the name of my noble friend Lord Holmes as a gallant attempt at defining additionality, although I dare say another Peer might draft it differently.

I want to make a more general point about additionality before coming on to the specifics of each amendment in this group. Additionality is a key principle underpinning the bank, and it is something that the Government take very seriously. That is demonstrated by the fact that additionality is one of the bank’s core investment principles, as set out in its framework document and strategic plan. However, following legal advice, the principle is not included in the Bill as there is no single agreed definition of additionality in a financial context that we could appropriately include in the Bill. Approaches to assessing additionality are developing over time and we would not want to stymie that development by creating a statutory definition of additionality at this stage.

While the term “additionality” has been included in previous legislation—for example, the Dormant Assets Act 2022 and the National Lottery Act 2006—additionality in those contexts had a different meaning: of funding projects or activities that the Government would not have otherwise funded. Assessing private sector additionality is more complex because it involves more actors and varied forms of financing. Each deal will have a particular set of circumstances that will indicate the amount of additionality that the bank is bringing. For the bank, as part of that, additionality means ensuring that it both crowds in private finance through its investments and avoids crowding out the market by providing finance that could have come from the private sector.

The bank has set out its approach to assessing and measuring these concepts of additionality in its strategic plan, which was published at the end of June. Currently the bank will assess additionality on a case-by-case basis, assessing the evidence as part of due diligence and monitoring that through a key performance indicator on the levels of private sector finance that it has crowded in. This is a measure commonly used by other organisations such as the OECD.

Crowding out is best assessed through evaluations and medium-term assessments of whether the portfolio of investments has led to crowding out in a particular sector. The bank is developing its thinking on how it will monitor and evaluate its work at both deal and portfolio level, including setting up an independent evaluation.

Further to this, additionality is implicitly covered in the Subsidy Control Act 2022, which of course applies to any subsidies the bank gives. Schedule 1D states:

“Subsidies should not normally compensate for the costs the beneficiary would have funded in the absence of any subsidy.”


Given the protections of the Subsidy Control Act 2022 and the regulatory regime, the difficulty in accurately defining additionality in the Bill, the work the bank is already doing on additionality and, finally, our amendment to the review, I hope my noble friend Lord Holmes will feel able to withdraw his amendment. I must say to my noble friend that the Government do not intend to bring forward any amendments at Third Reading, so I must disappoint him on that front. I should also say that to the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, in relation to the previous group, if I was not clear on that front.

The amendment in my name to Clause 9, on the statutory review, will ensure that the review of the bank will measure its success in encouraging additional investment. The drafting of the amendment is based on the reference to additionality in the framework document. I should like to provide reassurance that, given that the review will cover crowding in, it necessarily includes the question of whether crowding in did not happen, with the attendant risk of crowding out. This is because additionality is designed to measure genuine additional private finance—in other words, investment that would not have happened otherwise. I would fully expect the independent review to address the question of crowding out under the terms of this drafting.

The bank could act as the sole financer of a private project if it meets the bank’s investment principles and objectives, but it is highly unlikely that the bank, as the sole financer of a private project, would crowd out private investment, as the bank would be the sole investor in very immature or nascent financial markets for a technology only if no other investors were willing to support the project.

The bank’s initial assessment of the technologies, sectors and markets it plans to engage in, as published in its strategic plan, will allow it to focus its investment in areas with a limited risk of crowding out. This will continue to be developed and reviewed. In cases where the bank would act as the sole financer of a private project, it would expect to have a transformational impact on the market and for the market to be able to attract private capital over the medium to long term. This in part speaks to the concern of the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, about the bank being able to operate along the risk spectrum, as it were, rather than seeking to invest solely in perhaps lower-risk or less innovative projects, given the other demands that it has: making a return on its investments and becoming self-funding.

Given this, I am grateful to my noble friend for her commitment not to move her amendment when it is reached. I hope that, in future, my best efforts produce more than a quarter of a loaf.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken on this group, and particularly my noble friend Lady Noakes for bringing forward Amendment 24. I shall summarise what the Minister said: that additionality is pretty much impossible to define, but the bank will definitely do it—so that is good. It is unfortunate that we cannot have that in the drafting of the Bill given that, as I said in opening the group, this is the raison d’être of the bank: its only ultimate purpose is additionality. As other noble Lords have said, not having this could lead to less rather than more, and taxpayers’ money being put to that purpose.

It is desperately disappointing that we cannot have additionality in the Bill. I will withdraw my amendment but, in doing so, I gently, politely and respectfully request that my noble friend the Minister considers not moving government Amendment 23 and working to meld it with my noble friend’s Amendment 24 to come up with something that actually covers both crowding out and crowding in. Certainly, as drafted, government Amendment 23 does not do this. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 6.

Amendment 6 withdrawn.