All Recommendations

Government should undertake detailed cross‑modal analysis, using a corridor‑based approach, of the long term options for rail freight’s transition to zero emissions, including low carbon rail services and the scope for road based alternatives. It should then publish, by the end of 2021, a full strategy for rail freight to reach zero emissions by 2050, specifying the investments and/or subsidies that it will provide to get there.

To help manage peak time congestion on the urban transport network, local authorities should include a plan for urban freight within the infrastructure strategies they are developing. These plans should review local regulations to incentivise low congestion operations, consider the case for investments in infrastructure such as consolidation centres, and identify the land and regulatory requirements of new and innovative low congestion initiatives.

Government should produce new planning practice guidance on freight for strategic policy making authorities. The guidance should better support these authorities in planning for efficient freight networks to service homes and businesses as part of their plan making processes. This new planning practice guidance, which should be prepared by the end of 2020, should give further detail on appropriate considerations when planning for freight, such as the need to:

• provide and protect sufficient land/floorspace for storage and distribution activities on the basis of population and economic need, with particular consideration for the floorspace requirements for last mile distribution and consolidation centres;
• support the clustering of related activities within a supply chain, minimising the distance that goods must be moved and maximising the potential for efficient operations;
• maximise the potential for freight trips to be made at off peak times; and
• accommodate deliveries and servicing activity at the point of delivery.

Government should develop a data standard for freight data collection to support local authorities, outlining the requirements for technological capability, data requirements, and data format. Such a standard must seek to ensure consistent data quality and format across technologies to allow regional and national aggregation, and should be complete by the end of 2020.

Government should establish a new bi‑annual ‘Freight Leadership Council’, inviting representatives from BEIS, DfT, MHCLG, DEFRA and HM Treasury, devolved administrations, all freight modes and parts of the supply chain. This Council’s main focus should be on strategic, long term issues – specifically supporting decarbonisation of road and rail freight by 2050. This Council should hold its first meeting before the end of 2020.

The Commission recommends that government should set out a nationwide full fibre connectivity plan by spring 2019, including proposals for connecting rural and remote communities. This should ensure that full fibre connectivity is available to 15 million homes and businesses by 2025, 25 million by 2030 with full coverage by 2033. To achieve these targets:

• Ofcom should promote network competition to drive the commercial rollout of full fibre, by deregulating where competition is effective and guaranteeing a fair bet on risky investments before regulating any uncompetitive areas.
• Government should part subsidise rollout to rural and remote communities, beginning by 2020, starting with the hardest to reach areas and community self-build.
• Government and Ofcom should allow for copper switch-off by 2025.
• Government and Ofcom should take action to cut the cost of full fibre deployment including:
  • Government should ensure the processes for obtaining wayleaves and connecting new builds are the same for digital infrastructure as other utilities by 2019.
  • Local government should designate ‘digital champions’ to improve telecoms processes such as street work permissions and access to publicly owned assets.
  • Ofcom should monitor the accessibility of Openreach’s duct and pole infrastructure by levels of usage.

The Commission recommends that design should be embedded into the culture of infrastructure planning, to save money, reduce risk, add value, support environmental net gain and create a legacy that looks good and works well, by:

• Government ensuring that all Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects, including those authorised through hybrid parliamentary bills, have a board level design champion and use a design panel to maximise the value provided by the infrastructure.
• Design panels for nationally significant infrastructure projects having regard to design principles to be published by the National Infrastructure Commission based on advice received from the national infrastructure design group.

The Commission recommends that government should deliver long term certainty over infrastructure funding by adopting the funding profile set out in the ‘fiscal remit’ table in Spending Review 2019 and other future spending plans.

The Commission recommends that government should maintain access to the European Investment Bank if possible. If access is lost, a new, operationally independent, UK infrastructure finance institution should be established by 2021. To enable this, government should consult on a proposed design of the new institution by Spring 2019. The consultation should cover:

• Functions, including provision of finance to economic infrastructure projects in cases of market and coordination failures; catalysing innovation; and acting as a centre of excellence on infrastructure project development, procurement and delivery.
• A clear mandate, including sound banking, additionality and having a wider economic and social impact.
• Governance to safeguard the operational independence of the institution.

The Commission recommends that local authorities should be given further powers to capture a fair proportion of increases in the value of land from planning and infrastructure provision. To enable this, government should:

• Remove pooling restrictions on Section 106 in all circumstances, through forthcoming secondary legislation by 2020.
• Remove the ballot requirement for upper tier authorities’ powers to levy a business rate supplement of 2p or less in the pound for infrastructure, except where the supplement exceeds one third of scheme costs by 2021.
• Give local authorities powers to levy zonal precepts on council tax, where public investments in infrastructure drive up surrounding property values by 2021.
• Provide greater certainty in compulsory purchase compensation negotiations by including independent valuations early in the process to be paid for by the acquiring authority by 2021.

The Commission recommends that government should set out a pipeline of pot 1 Contracts for Difference auctions, to deliver at least 50 per cent renewable generation by 2030, as part of the transition to a highly renewable generation mix. Government should:

• Move technologies that have recently become cost competitive, such as offshore wind, to pot 1 following the next Contracts for Difference auction in Spring 2019. Pot 1 should be used for the overwhelming majority of the increase in renewable capacity required.
• Publish indicative auction dates and budgets for the next decade by 2020.
• Over time take whole systems costs into account in Contracts for Difference auctions, as far as possible.
• Consider whether there is a case for a small-scale, pot 2 auction in the 2020s, if there are technologies which are serious contenders for future pot 1 auctions.
• Not agree support for more than one nuclear power station beyond Hinkley Point C, before 2025.

The Commission recommends that government needs to make progress towards zero carbon heat:

• Establishing the safety case for using hydrogen as a replacement for natural gas, followed by trialling hydrogen at community scale by 2021.
• Subject to the success of community trials, launching a trial to supply hydrogen to at least 10,000 homes by 2023, including hydrogen production with carbon capture and storage.
• By 2021, government should establish an up to date evidence base on the performance of heat pumps within the UK building stock and the scope for future reductions in the cost of installation.
• Set a target for the rate of installations of energy efficiency measures in the building stock of 21,000 measures a week by 2020, maintained at this level until a decision on future heat infrastructure is taken. Policies to deliver this should include:
  • Allocating £3.8 billion between now and 2030 to deliver energy efficiency improvements in social housing.
  • Government continuing to trial innovative approaches for driving energy efficiency within the owner occupier market.
  • Government setting out, by the end of 2018, how regulations in the private rented sector will be tightened and enforced over time.

The Commission recommends that government should publish good quality data on infrastructure costs and performance. All public bodies taking decisions on strategic economic infrastructure should publish the forecast costs and benefits of their major infrastructure projects at each appraisal stage and at a suitable point after completion, by the end of 2019. The Infrastructure and Projects Authority should work with departments to ensure that costs are comparable between sectors.

The Commission recommends that government should ensure that plans are in place to deliver additional supply and demand reduction of at least 4,000 Ml/day. Action to deliver this twin-track approach should start immediately:

• Ofwat should launch a competitive process by the end of 2019, complementing the Price Review, so that at least 1,300 Ml/day is provided through (i) a national water network and (ii) additional supply infrastructure by the 2030s.
• The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs should set an objective for the water industry to halve leakage by 2050, with Ofwat agreeing 5 year commitments for each company (as part of the regulatory cycle) and reporting on progress.
• The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs should enable companies to implement compulsory metering by the 2030s beyond water stressed areas, by amending regulations before the end of 2019 and requiring all companies to consider systematic roll out of smart meters as a first step in a concerted campaign to improve water efficiency.

The Commission recommends that government should set out a strategy to deliver a nationwide standard of resilience to flooding with an annual likelihood of 0.5 per cent by 2050 where this is feasible. A higher standard of 0.1 per cent should be provided for densely populated areas where the costs per household are lower. To deliver the strategy:

• By the end of 2019, government should put in place a rolling 6 year funding programme in line with the funding profile set out by the Commission. This should enable efficient planning and delivery of projects and address the risks from all sources of flooding.
• The Environment Agency should update plans for all catchments and coastal cells in England before the end of 2023. These should identify how risk can be managed most effectively using a combination of measures including green and grey infrastructure, spatial planning and property level measures.
• Water companies and local authorities should work together to publish joint plans to manage surface water flood risk by 2022.
• The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and planning authorities should ensure that from 2019 all new development is resilient to flooding with an annual likelihood of 0.5 per cent for its lifetime and does not increase risk elsewhere.