Telecoms May Benefit from Gov’s New British Infrastructure Taskforce
The UK Government has launched a new British Infrastructure Taskforce (BIT), which is intended to attract more private investment by encouraging businesses to help design future infrastructure policy. In theory, this could be of some benefit to broadband and mobile (digital infrastructure), although the announcement doesn’t give specifics.
According to the blurb, the new Taskforce will explore different options to support the Government’s infrastructure goals to drive growth for the whole of the nation. Some of the UK’s biggest financial companies including LLoyds, HSBC, and M&G were at yesterday’s inaugural meeting of the new group.
Naturally, there are the usual sound bites about how “this marks a significant shift in approach” and will “turbocharge infrastructure investment across the width and breadth of the UK“. But the idea of bringing businesses, banks and investors together to help shape future Government policy is by no means a new approach for politicians to explore.
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The move should at least complement the Government’s efforts to “unblock” key infrastructure projects through planning reform (here and here), which may in turn help to support their plan for making a “renewed push to fulfil the ambition of full gigabit [broadband] and national 5G [mobile] coverage by 2030” (here).
Rachel Reeves MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer, said:
“Increasing investment in infrastructure is a vital part of delivering on our number one mission to grow the economy and create jobs. Just days after our International Investment Summit, we are delivering on our promise to work with business to drive growth across the country, and the expertise of this Taskforce will be invaluable in the weeks and months ahead.”
The move comes shortly after the Government announced the formation of the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) to support their 10-year investment strategy, which aims to bring oversight of related infrastructure strategy and delivery under one roof. All of this sounds good, but judging the actual effectiveness and output of such groups can be very difficult for the public.
The following attendees of the first Taskforce meeting discussed investment opportunities, financial mechanisms, and strategies to maximise economic value. The taskforce aims to “meet regularly” in order to help it deliver “long-lasting solutions for job creation, growth, and environmental goals“:
- Tracy Blackwell, CEO, Pension Insurance Corporation;
- Anne Richards, Vice Chair, Fidelity International;
- Charlie Nunn, CEO, Lloyds Banking;
- Vivian Nicoli, Managing Director, CDPQ;
- Andy Briggs, CEO, Phoenix Group;
- Ian Stuart, CEO, HSBC UK;
- Andrea Rossi, CEO, M&G;
- Stephen Cohen, Chief Product Officer, BlackRock (represented by Helen Lees-Jones Global Head of Sustainable & Transition Solutions);
- Deepa Bharadwaj, Head of Infrastructure Europe, IFM Investors;
- Mike Regnier CEO, Santander UK;
- Sir Douglas Flint, Chairman, ABRDN;
- Nick Smallwood, CEO, Infrastructure and Projects Authority;
- James Heath, CEO, National Infrastructure Commission;
- John Flint, CEO, National Wealth Fund.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Not exactly a vote of confidence in the existing National Infrastructure Commission is it?
https://nic.org.uk/
And then offshore everything to cheaper resource! All the Kudos of being registered in UK then offshore it all! Joke!!
Doesnt have “British” in it’s name, so it isn’t ‘nationalist’ enough. Duh.
NISTA is combining the functions of the NIC with the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (presumably so they can talk to each other, and to the government, more effectively):
https://www.ice.org.uk/news-insight/news-and-blogs/ice-blogs/the-infrastructure-blog/uk-gov-confirms-new-infra-body-to-improve-delivery
The linked ICE report therein is also worth a look.
Lol, telecom infrastructure taskforce that mostly has bankers in it. We all know where this will end up
Cynicism is all very well, but what then do you propose? How do you raise money for a project?
First, though, it’s not a “telecoms task force”. The BIT will cover national infrastructure whether it be road, rail, electricity distribution, comms, carbon capture, energy, you name it. Second, the private finance people (“bankers”) are not “the” task force. It also encompasses the IPA and the NIC (what will be NISTA). It also includes the National Wealth Fund, and of course the government. So yes, there are a lot of money men (private and public) involved. But how else do you get projects funded w/o talking to the money holders?
The people/institutions with the money to invest (banks, pension funds, etc.) need to be in on the strategic planning discussions from the very beginning, not just when the hand that wants the money goes begging for it. The alternative means of financing such projects is increased government borrowing and/or higher taxes (and recall that the tax burden under the last Conservative government was an all-time high and this is expected to rise to further all-time highs during this parliament). The money for national infrastructure has to come from somewhere or we just don’t do national infrastructure at all (and the UK is widely acknowledged to have underinvested in infrastructure compared with comparable economies for the last 40 years). If you want it all to come from increased government borrowing and further taxation (and so government day-to-day project micro-management, and even higher borrowing and taxes w/o private investment and relatively speaking higher interest rates) then fine; that is a legitimate point of view. But that historically hasn’t had a particularly good record.
But not attempting something different means more of what has gone on hitherto, such as vast overruns (e.g. HS2), National Grid expansion hold-ups, etc. Is that what you advocate? The BIT may, of course, still fail in some or all of its objectives. They have a tricky balance to strike, since one of the problems highlighted by the Institution of Civil Engineers over the HS2 debacle was insufficient time spent in development, but the aim of the BIT is at least partly to speed up the whole infrastructure planning and development process to deliver the Labour government’s aim of improved UK economic growth in order to ease continued funding of stuff like social care and the NHS. I, at least, wish it at least some success over past efforts.