British Infrastructure Bonds and the Office of Public Infrastructure

Now that Labour has nailed its colours to the mast of that sinking ship, HMS Austerity, it's time to consider alternative ways to publicly fund the renewal and maintenance of Britain's sagging public buildings, bridges, sewerage systems and other infrastructure. A 'British Infrastructure Bond' programme, administered by a new public body, could focus on ensuring the long term availability and stability of Britain's infrastructure according to the national interest, without being distracted by the short term political issues of the day.  

As the UK government won't spend the revenue it raises through taxes and general borrowing on such things, and has privatised the operation of utilities etc in ways that did not oblige the private operators to invest for the longer term  - and probably shouldn't be trusted with the money anyway - it seems we need a dedicated 'infrastructure bond' programme to ensure that adequate funding is raised and spent where it should be. 

A 'British Infrastructure Bond' programme could be administered by the Office of Public Infrastructure, a non-departmental public body (like the Office of Budget Responsibility) with discretion in the performance of its duties, as long as those duties are performed objectively, transparently and independently and takes into account the sitting government’s policies (specifically, what public infrastructure needs and responsibilities those policies are creating, as well as failing to support). 

The OPI could also prevent a government of the day getting its filthy hands on the loot, or granting contracts to donors and cronies.

While the international money markets rightly rejected the Truss/Kwarteng 'mini-budget' to fund tax cuts, there is no reason to suggest that they would frown on a dedicated public borrowing programme to support the countries' genuine long term infrastructure needs that clearly are not being met under current tax and borrowing progammes. 

Such 'infrastructure bond' programmes are not new. Even Scotland announced it's intention to issue a dedicated infrastructure bond in October, though that seems to be very much in the early planning phase and, ironically, may have been derailed by interim political events - surely another demonstration of the yawning gap such a programme should fill.