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Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

What a joy to perform once again in this theatre of dreams. What an honour to speak for the Government introducing this important Bill. What a responsibility this House has to create the future our nation needs, to build a Britain fit for generations to come and to plant trees for those born later.

Governments of all persuasions tend to neglect the long term. Perhaps that is the legacy of the post-war preoccupation with Keynes, who after all wrote:

“In the long run we are all dead.”

Perhaps the necessity of popular payback within five years discourages public policy that looks sufficiently forward. To speak candidly, it is more likely that we—those of us with power—are frightened to anticipate what might be, fearful of misjudging what is to come. Sometimes, in respect of some things, that does not matter too much, because some of the business of government is necessarily reactive. But when it comes to infrastructure, failure to face the future is catastrophic and devastating.

Thinking for the long term widens an appreciation of consequence and deepens an understanding of effect. The absence of strategic vision not only leaves us with exclusively reactive responses to need, but reduces policy to piecemeal, tiny steps when giant leaps forward are needed. That reflects a small view of government. That is not your view, Mr Speaker, I hasten to add, and nor is it mine, but it is a pessimist’s view of politics—a politics reduced to dull, technocratic managerialism.

By contrast, the Bill that I introduce to the House today is urgent and ambitious about long-term plans and a bolder view of what Government can do: urgent because Britain sits uncomfortably low, at 27th, in the global infrastructure rankings; ambitious because, as this Bill demonstrates, the Government are focused on the future. This Government understand that the future of our country depends on investment for the long term that must and will be ambitious.