UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [HL]

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

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

[Lord Sharkey (LD)]

My Lords, I will ask a brief question about regulation in the sense raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. Chapter 11 of the framework published by the Treasury says:

“Notwithstanding any exemptions that may apply to the Company, the Shareholder acknowledges that the provision of certain aspects of the Company’s activities may be subject to … the ‘FCA Rules’ or guidance or principles … the ‘PRA Rules’ or guidance or principles and … other applicable laws or regulations.”


Could the Minister help the Committee by saying what these “certain aspects” might be?

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to these amendments, but I will make a general point about my approach to today’s debate. I find myself agreeing with a very high proportion of the amendments. We obviously want to hear from the Minister the extent to which the Government agree with them, but it seems that the issues we will face on Report will be about which of these amendments need to go into the Bill, rather than whether they are intrinsically sensible, which I think most of them are. I even venture into uneasy territory in this group by finding myself almost agreeing with the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, again. I put it in slightly guarded terms—

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

I have no problem with that.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

The noble Baroness should be uncomfortable as well.

UKIB is not an ordinary bank, but strong arguments have been made for subjecting it to at least some of the regulatory measures under the Financial Services and Markets Act. Of course, we will shortly see a new version of that legislation and it is difficult to know exactly what it will look like. Nevertheless, there seems merit in the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, that UKIB staff should be passed as fit and proper persons. It may be that the Minister is able to offer assurances that that will be the case. If so, perhaps she could write to us and outline the process in more detail.

The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, talked about the bank’s lending and borrowing powers. These are important questions at this early stage of the bank’s existence and, once again, I look forward to the Minister’s response.

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Moved by

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

2: Clause 2, page 1, line 9, at end insert—
“(2A) The statement must also outline how the Bank will, when carrying out its activities, balance the objectives under subsection (3), to ensure its activities do not cause environmental harm.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is to facilitate a debate around the balancing of UKIB’s objectives, which have the potential to come into conflict.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, before I start to speak to this group, can we clear a piece of housekeeping with the Minister? I would be grateful if she could give us an assurance that, when she writes to one of us, she writes to all of us, unless there is an overwhelming case against it. I take her nod as an affirmative and thank her.

I move Amendment 2 and will speak to my other amendments in this group, Amendments 3, 8 and 20. Amendment 2 was tabled to facilitate a debate around the potentially competitive nature of the bank’s objectives. The bank has acknowledged that the climate and growth objectives are likely to come into conflict. To its credit, it has loosely committed to the “do no harm” principle. However, as we say so often during our consideration of legislation, a verbal or written commitment is not the same as a statutory safeguard.

As I referenced at Second Reading, the Government opted not to include a general climate change provision in the Subsidy Control Act. They wanted to give public authorities maximum flexibility when granting subsidies, even if they cause environmental harms. As we transition to a greener economy, one would hope that investment in and subsidy for polluting technologies will steadily decline, however there are no guarantees. As the front page of the Bill makes clear, this will become environmental law, once enacted. It therefore makes little sense to leave these matters to chance. What message does it send if our environmental law does not properly protect the environment?

Amendment 3 would broaden the bank’s climate objective to bring in the 2030 species abundance target under the Environment Act. As the Dasgupta review made clear, nature and biodiversity are inherently linked to our economic and wider well-being. We support the Government’s decision to include a species abundance target in the Environment Act and look forward to seeing the detail when it is brought forward by Defra. We worked with colleagues across your Lordships’ House to strengthen that target, and we are pleased that Ministers listened. Having set the ambition, we need concerted action to realise it.

There is not only a moral case for green, nature-based investment—those types of projects tend to have a higher cost-benefit ratio than traditional forms of infrastructure. Not only are there headline economic benefits but there are jobs to be created too. Projects to improve our natural environment could have a particularly positive employment effect in some areas with the worst labour market outcomes.

On jobs, I turn to Amendment 8, which would add job creation to the growth objective. The creation of jobs is mentioned as part of UKIB’s second objective in the Chancellor’s letter from 18 March. That document sets out the bank’s strategic steer. It is slightly curious that jobs are mentioned in that document, albeit only twice, but that has not been carried across to the Bill itself. The bank needs to be a force for good in all respects, which means creating highly paid, high-skilled jobs. The Government have long promised an employment Bill to ensure greater protection across the board, but curiously they have been unable to find parliamentary time to deliver on that commitment. The projects funded by the bank will create jobs, but it is not clear what weight, if any, will be given to the terms attached to those roles. I hope that the Minister can confirm that this is the Government’s intention for jobs created through UKIB’s investment—to be well-paid, secure jobs, rather than short-term or zero-hour contracts, with few rights and protections.

Finally, I have tabled Amendment 20, which seeks to expand the definition of infrastructure to include investment in the natural environment and the circular economy. This is a natural partner to several other amendments in this group, and the case for it is self-evident. What in a sense we are trying to do is to expand the two objectives to four; one of those objectives is about net zero, and the second is about levelling up. We want to include the environment and jobs; that way, the objectives will in our view become more balanced. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. As we approach this group, I have added my name to Amendment 2, which has just been so clearly introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. I do no more than to reiterate the point that including the “do no harm” requirement in the framework document and strategic plans is not, as the Minister suggested at Second Reading, actually significant. There is scope for conflict between these objectives, and we need to make it crystal clear in the Bill that the bank should not make investments or engaging in other activities that contradict its own objectives or the Government’s wider environmental objectives.

I would like to say my bit on the theme that will go through much of our discussions today about the absolute priority of putting essential policy components in the Bill, rather than any other accompanying document that does not have the force of legislation. We know that, when circumstances change, anything short of primary legislation can be changed or refocused. I hope that the Minister will forgive me if I remind her of our debates over the Financial Services Act. In those discussions, when asking to put things in it, we were assured that the “remit letters” to the PRA and the FCA would

“set ambitious recommendations relating to climate change”.—[Official Report, 24/2/21; col. GC 224.]

Indeed, they did. However, there was significant emphasis adjustment to those recommendations this April in the light of the Government’s focus on domestic oil and gas production in their energy security strategy. I, too, regret that we did not make it clear in the Subsidy Control Bill and it makes me more certain than ever of the virtue of ensuring that what we want is in the Bill.

I have Amendment 4 in this group, and am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, my noble friend Lord McDonald of Salford and the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, for adding their names to it. This amendment, like many others in the group which I generally support, considers the scope and ambition of the UKIB’s objectives. I am afraid I cannot pronounce “UKIB” as one word because, if I do, it comes out sounding like “UKIP” and I then come out in hives. I hope noble Lords will forgive me for continuing to use the initials. The amendment’s objective is to highlight two issues: one is nature and the natural environment—there are several other amendments in this group on that issue—and the other is adaptation. I am extremely glad to see my noble friend Lady Brown of Cambridge in her place and hope we may hear from her on the latter issue.

My amendment uses wording that the Government themselves proposed and passed into the Health and Care Act 2022. I will not compare duties for the NHS with the objectives of the bank further, but it is worth making one point on this matter. For the Health and Care Act, the Government set out an overarching three- pronged approach to their environmental considerations: reducing emissions, achieving environmental targets and adapting to climate change. These are interlocking issues; the Government recognised this and took action to ensure that they were given priority in that Bill. We should do the same here.

On adaptation, in particular, we must recognise that, however effective we are in our pursuit of a zero- carbon world, there is, as the third UK climate change risk assessment said,

“strong evidence that even under low warming scenarios the UK will be subject to a range of significant and costly impacts”.

According to Net Zero Strategy,

“it is essential that the UK’s adaptive capacity is rapidly developed to prepare for”

this. This amendment would address that issue.

The amendment also ensures that the protection and restoration of nature are included in the Bill. The interdependence of the climate change and nature crises has, in theory, long been agreed by the Government, and was confirmed by the Minister at Second Reading. We know that the worst climate outcomes cannot be avoided without a significant expansion in nature restoration. We also know that nature restoration supports levelling up, and regional and economic growth, through improvements to mental and physical health and through the creation of valuable jobs. However, it is also clear that there is a significant funding gap, estimated at around £5.6 billion a year by the Green Finance Institute, which needs to be bridged to achieve the necessary investment.

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[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, there is a sense of nostalgia. Right at the end, we had the favourite statement you get from Governments in this situation: that it is not appropriate—in other words, “We don’t want to do it, but we haven’t got an explanation why we don’t want to do it.”

This has been a valuable debate which, I hope, goes to the core of what this Bill is about. There was a high level of consensus, and I am hopeful it may grow by the time we get to Report and that an amendment will be generated, somehow magically—perhaps the Minister might consider creating it—that pulls in many of the various streams of this debate, very few of which conflicted. Most of them fitted together in different ways—in some ways, to make something too big to be useful, but certainly somewhere in there is something of the right size to be useful.

It was very interesting that the Minister said that this was a package which will be in the framework document. The fundamental difference coming out of this debate is that the Minister feels it should be a package in a non-binding document, while most of the rest of us think that most of these things should be in the Bill. I hope she will be thinking about how she might face such an amendment. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 2 withdrawn.

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[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I will briefly speak to my Amendment 11, which is also around energy efficiency but focuses particularly on the built infra- structure in this country, which is what most of us are probably talking about. I have no objection to the broader definition, but I like the specific issue of built infrastructure. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, is absolutely right that big boys’ toys are always the focus; big nuclear is probably the ultimate example of that, although I am quite confident that it will never be built because of financial reasons, apart perhaps from Sizewell C in his back garden.

We have a bad track record in this area; it has not only been ignored but the green homes grant, which finished last year, was described by the Public Accounts Committee at the other end as a “slam dunk fail”. A great opportunity was unfortunately missed. Built infrastructure accounts for some 25% of our emissions nationally, so this is a really straightforward way to make a difference on climate change, which is one of the main objectives of the UK Infrastructure Bank. I reinforce the messages from other Members across the House. I also very much agreed with the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, on some of the infrastructure, such as roads.

We really need to take advantage of the most cost-effective way of achieving decarbonisation of our economy, through energy efficiency and by taking on the challenge of the built infrastructure in this country, on which the UK Infrastructure Bank can be a major player. It is estimated that we will spend some £37 billion of public money over the coming years on the energy price crisis. That money will all go on standing still; instead, we need to invest money to make sure that those energy bills come down in future and that we decarbonise the economy through energy efficiency. This bank ought to be a major part of that target.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, there is very little in this group that I can object to in principle. We debated the definition of infrastructure at Second Reading, with concerns expressed on all sides that items such as buildings or energy efficiency are not in the Bill. As we are doing this, I took to my own conscience and realised that we have not done the loft—the problem is all the stuff in it. Anyway, by subcontracting that a bit, we got it out.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, raises an interesting point about mass transport in her Amendment 18, while the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, raised a variety of issues including air quality, social infrastructure, data and skills training. I said at Second Reading that it is vital we get the bank’s objectives and definitions of infrastructure correct from the start. That remains my view. The bank will not be effective if its mission statement is ambiguous. However, for that very reason, it is also important that the Bill does not simply become a long shopping list.

I hope the Minister can confirm that the current definitions include—even if not explicitly—many of the initiatives raised by noble Lords. It is inevitable that there will be a composite amendment on Report which once again seeks to embrace many of the important ideas we have discussed in this group. I also hope she will take a number of these suggestions away. It may be suitable for the Government to amend the Bill, but there may be other ways forward.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, as discussed, the amendments in this group seek to clarify or extend the scope of the bank and are focused predominantly on the Bill’s definition of infrastructure. I apologise to the Committee and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, that I did indeed get ahead of myself on the previous group.

First, I will address Amendments 10, 11, 17, 19 and 21, which seek to make explicit reference to technologies and facilities relating to energy efficiency, energy security and clean air. I reassure noble Lords that these technologies are already in scope of the definition of infrastructure in Clause 2. The definition captures all energy efficiency measures, including those related to buildings and homes, and energy security measures that fall in scope of “electricity” and the “provision of heat”. We expect clean air to be captured under “climate change”. The definition, which is non-exhaustive by design to give the bank an appropriate degree of flexibility over the subsectors in which it can invest, would be too long and specific if we were to list every subsection.

It may be helpful to give a little more detail on the genesis of the definition; it is based on a definition used in the UKIM Act 2020 but changed in a couple of ways. It is wider in that it relates to the technologies and facilities connected to infrastructure, giving the bank the flexibility to provide support to assets, networks or new technology. It does not seek to include social infrastructure, which I will come to, which is not the focus of the institution. It clarifies that climate change technologies, such as nature-based solutions, are in scope. That is what we have aimed to do in writing the definition. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said that the implication is that what has been listed are priorities; we have sought to provide clarity where it is needed, not necessarily to assign priority.

I turn to Amendments 18 and 25 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. Amendment 18 seeks to exclude infrastructure investment in private cars. I ask her to wait until the strategic plan is published later this month for further information on the bank’s focus in this regard. I have been assured that noble Lords will see the strategic plan ahead of Report, which is a useful development. As I have said, the definition of infrastructure is based on the precedent of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 and the Infrastructure (Financial Assistance) Act 2012, and does not have a specific list of exclusions in it. Amendment 25 would include reduction in demand in relation to economic infrastructure in the definition of infrastructure. The bank will invest in clean infrastructure which will, if successful, move demand away from more harmful infrastructure, thereby helping to deliver on the bank’s climate change objective.