Presidential Roundtable summary: in conversation with Exchequer Secretary Helen Whately

Date: 17 November 2021

This roundtable, chaired by ICE’s President Ed McCann, was an in-conversation session with Helen Whately MP, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury.

Background

The challenges the infrastructure sector is currently facing are huge - reaching net zero, levelling up, building back post-Covid-19 - but so is the scale of ambition in tackling them.

Over the last two years, the government has published the first National Infrastructure Strategy and a bold Net Zero Strategy. It has launched the UK Infrastructure Bank and continued to show a commitment to investing in infrastructure in the recent Spending Review and Autumn Budget. A plan of action, and the funding to support it, is now in place. The private sector and the government must ensure efficient coordination, collaboration and communication to deliver it.

This event was held under the Chatham House rule and the discussion focused on two areas.

First, what we need to do to ensure the good work on planning and prioritisation doesn’t fall over in delivery. Second, what we should watch out for as we bed in the new institutional and governance structures that have been put in place.