“My Government will strengthen the economic ties across the
union, investing in and improving national infrastructure.”
UK Infrastructure Bank
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The UK Infrastructure Bank (UKIB), which will launch later in
the spring, is central to delivering these ambitions. It will
provide financing support to private sector and local
authority infrastructure projects across the UK. This support
will help accelerate our progress to net zero and level up
all parts of the UK.
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It will be able to deploy £12 billion of equity and debt
capital and £10 billion of guarantees and is expected to
support more than £40 billion of infrastructure investment
overall.
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The bank will be headquartered in Leeds, putting the bank in
the North of England; the home to the first infrastructure
revolution. The location has been chosen to bring UKIB closer
to the heart of the Government’s levelling up agenda.
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This is one of many actions that the Government is taking to
tackle climate change as part of the Prime Minister’s Ten
Point Plan for the Green Revolution. It will help create and
support up to 250,000 highly-skilled green jobs in the UK and
spur over three times as much private investment by 2030.
Project Speed
The Government is revolutionising the delivery of infrastructure
projects through Project Speed, which ensures the Government is
building the right things faster, greener and better.
Project Speed is accelerating and improving delivery by looking
at reform of environmental regulations to secure better outcomes
for the environment; landmark reform of the planning system to
allow infrastructure such as schools and hospitals to be expanded
more quickly; transformation of the construction sector to make
it more productive, sustainable and internationally competitive;
and bringing about a step change in capability and leadership to
ensure local areas and economies benefit from the infrastructure
they need to prosper.
Project Speed identified ways to save up to 50 per cent of time
in the planned construction process of the A66, cutting this down
from 10 to 5 years through innovative solutions such as
standardised, modular and offsite design and construction,
alongside more intensive and concurrent delivery. In aggregate,
these interventions could accelerate delivery by around one
third.
Key facts
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Investing in infrastructure drives long term productivity
improvements, and in the short term stimulates economic
activity. A 10 per cent increase in the public capital stock
has been linked to a 1-2 per cent increase in GDP, partly
through productivity improvements.
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The UK has historically underinvested in infrastructure and
this Government is committed to addressing that. Spending
Review 2020 committed £100 billion of capital investment in
2021-22, a £30 billion cash increase compared to 2019-20.
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Driving private sector investment is crucial to upgrading the
UK’s infrastructure. The Infrastructure and Projects
Authority estimate that more than 50 per cent of the £600
billion UK infrastructure pipeline will come from the private
sector.
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We expect the UK Infrastructure Bank to crowd in £2.5 million
of external capital for every £1 million invested in private
projects over the course of its life.
