National Infrastructure Commission: Government must ‘go big’ on infrastructure or miss climate goals
Commission blasts the government’s ‘stuttering’ approach to infrastructure development, but suggests it is still possible to get ‘back on track’ to deliver on climate and energy security goals
Just days ahead of the hotly awaited ‘Green Day’ and the government’s promised update to its Net Zero Strategy, the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) has today called for the government to “go big” in support of a new wave of low carbon infrastructure projects or risk missing out on its economic and climate goals.
The NIC’s annual report, released today, reviewed progress made by the government against a series of major infrastructure objectives set out by the NIC last year, which cover everything from public transport and energy to flood resilience and waste management.
It found that despite advances in some areas such as improved nationwide broadband coverage, overall the UK’s infrastructure plans have “stuttered further just as the need for acceleration has heightened”. As such, the report warns trhe government is “off track to meet its targets and ambitions”.
“To get back on track, we need a change of gear in infrastructure policy,” said Sir John Armitt, chair of the NIC. “This means fewer low stakes incremental changes and instead placing some bigger strategic bets, backed by public funding where necessary – after all, the risk of delay in addressing climate change is now greater than the risk of over correction.”
The report presents economic growth and climate targets as two sides of the same coin, both of which can be delivered through the accelerated development of effective and sustainable infrastructure.
As such, it echoes myriad other reports from the Climate Change Committee, Parliamentary Select Committees, and others, in warning that there is a worrying disconnect between the government’s ‘ambitious’ net zero targets and the current rate of low carbon infrastructure delivery.
Areas such as energy efficiency in homes and the roll out of low-carbon heating solutions have seen “negligible advances”, the report warned, despite their relative urgency in light of the cost of living crisis and soaring energy costs.
The government has promised to see 600,000 heat pump installed a year by 2028, yet less than a tenth of that number were installed last year, according to the report. In contrast, 1.5 million new gas boilers were installed in the same period, it said.
Similarly, only 37,000 of the 300,000 public vehicle charging points promised by 2030 have been installed to date, according to the NIC.
And while the report praises the continued roll out of new renewables capacity it warns a step change in the pace of clean power infrastructure development is urgently needed. “There are only twelve years to realise the government’s aim of a decarbonised electricity system by 2035,” it notes.
The rate of new infrastructure development across the water industry is similarly criticised, with the report warning that while some progress has been made in improving the rate of leaks the government is still long way off achieving its goal of reducing leaks by 50 per cent by 2050.
In many of the cases highlighted by the NIC review, the delivery of crucial new infrastructure is being obstructed by slow planning systems. But in some cases it argues there is a simple lack of planning.
For example, flood resilience and climate adaptation lacks measurable long term targets, according to the report, despite the fact that two million properties are at risk of flooding from rivers and the sea, and three million are at risk from surface water flooding – a number increasing year on year due to risks from climate change.
The report also sets out a series of recommendations for how the government can help accelerate infrastructure development in support of net zero and energy security goals.
For example, it calls for more long term and stable policy making, highlighting how where government policy has been largely consistent in recent years – such as the broadband and renewables roll out – the most progress has been made.
In contrast, areas where policy frameworks lack certainty and clarity have resulted in low levels of investor confidence and lower levels of investment.
The report also calls for “fewer, but bigger and better interventions from central government”.
“Government continues to expend too much effort on many small scale funding interventions and repeated consultations, trying to maintain optionality in all areas,” it said. “Making small steps forward in all directions will not bring about the scale of change in infrastructure needed to meet the Sixth Carbon Budget and deliver a net zero economy.”
And it proposes a further devolution of powers from Whitehall, arguing that more localised approaches to infrastructure development can “better reflect local economic and social priorities and avoid distorted incentives created by pursuing myriad national grants”.
Currently, many low carbon infrastructure projects, such as public sector energy efficiency programmes or active travel projects, are still run under a competitive bidding process, where areas compete for available funding on a project-by-project basis leading to inefficiencies and duplication of effort by local authorities. Instead, the report suggests regions should receive consistent funding, which they can use where and how it is most needed.
Finally, the report reiterates long-standing calls for the fast-tracking and streamlining of planning processes, highlighting how the average project takes around four years to get through the planning system, compared 2.5 years a decade ago.
In addition to its strategic policy recommentations, the report puts forward a series of specific asks of government, including urging Ministers to move forward with HS2 to enable economic growth in the North and Midlands, accelerate the consenting process for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects, and rapidly put in place measures to better protect homes from flooding by progressing with Flood and Water Management Act 2010.
In response to the report, a Treasury spokesperson said: “We are committed to achieving our net zero goals and are spending £12.6bn this decade to cut national energy consumption by 15 per cent. Delivering high quality infrastructure is foundation of our future growth and we have maintained our total investment at record levels over the next five years, with the Commission recognising our progress on gigabit broadband rollout and renewable electricity generation.”
The NIC report is the latest in a string of publications calling on the government to take more meaningful and strategic action to deliver on its net zero goals.
Hopes are high the government’s self-styled ‘Green Day’ later this week will provide a flurry of new decarbonisation policies as part of an update to the UK’s Net Zero Strategy and a formal response to the recent review of net zero policies undertaken by Conservative MP Chris Skidmore. The government is also facing growing calls from business groups for it to come forward with a more ambitious green industrial strategy in response to the multi-billion dollar clean tech subsidies offered through the new US Inflation Reduction Act.
However, expectations that Ministers will come forward with a suitably ambitious new strategy this Thursday were dented over the weekend by media reports Number 10 is keen to reposition the wave of announcements as an ‘energy security day’ and is planning to launch the new plans in Aberdeen, the UK’s oil capital.
Yet it remains to be seen whether the government will engage meaningfully with the strategies proposed to them.
