Speeches by Green.

“I want to ask about staffing in local authorities. We recognise that there are staffing challenges for planning departments; what is the Department doing to tackle the root causes of those challenges?”

“Joanna, my question sticks with developer contributions, which touch on many other Government Departments as well. How are you improving communications with all the other Government Departments and agencies that are also affected by developer contributions?”

“Do you expect to see more AI in use in the coming months?”

“No, it was relevant. I wanted to move on to governance culture, without fixating on HS2, because we could all think of examples where the governance culture has not been what we would want it to be in some of these mega projects. How will the changes you are proposing address those recurring themes, especially around p…”

“You almost have a different channel in.”

“David, how are we defining a mega project? What is so special about the three that you have outlined? What is the threshold that they have crossed?”

“It does. The Office for Value for Money has made a series of recommendations. How do you expect it to improve project delivery?”

“Good morning. I am interested in hearing from all of the panel on why you think we see so many problems with governance, oversight and decision making in the biggest projects we embark on.”

“It sounds quite ad hoc.”

“When there are projects that complement each other or are in a similar area but are in different Government Departments, how do you make sure they do actually complement each other and are providing value for money? Presumably, they will have different teams working on them.”

“I am keen to understand how you can ensure that the governance of the infrastructure strategy and the pipeline of projects coming through aligns with the governance of the five missions. You mentioned the Oxford-Cambridge arc, which might be a good real-life example.”

“Has that already started?”

“What do you mean by “independent”? That is an additional layer that we are talking about.”

“You have mentioned HS2. Does this mean that the reset of HS2 currently is going through this process? It does not agree with the Department for Transport on how much it is going to cost. How is that working in practice?”

“I am keen to explore a bit more how you will prevent announcing projects too early, like before their feasibility, before they have been assessed as to whether they are good to go, and before announcing the budgets and timeframes. How are you going to stop that from happening? We are talking about politicians here.”

“In terms of those uncertainties and risks right at the beginning of a project, going forward, how will you make sure those risks are better understood and teased out? We could all list examples of where that has gone wrong.”

“How does that work in practice? If you have committed to a power station or a railway line, are you really going to not release the money?”

“You said it is early days. What options and actions would be open to you, if you came to the conclusion that you did not have sufficient independence to fulfil the role that you are there to do?”

“On that point, Jon, how will you ensure that NISTA has sufficient independence to fulfil your function, to set infrastructure need and to challenge the Government’s longer-term strategy, if you are part of the Treasury?”

“How does that work in practice? If there are different Government Departments or agencies working on projects that are related in some way, who decides that they need to be talking to each other and making sure that they are complementing each other and providing value?”