Structural Reforms

Much needed reforms to the country’s vital infrastructure have been stuck behind policies that attempted to couple strategic decision-taking to consumer bills. This inherited construct is left over from naive market-orientated policy that inverted governance half a century ago. The idea was that consumer pressure would be exerted through the democratic system to keep strategic national infrastructure management aligned with national priorities. The failure of this communication channel left those infrastructures controlled by their commercial operators. Governments responded to the cost of living pressures by diverting responsibility to quangos, and devised convoluted subsidies in an attempt to impose a market philosophy where no real markets exist. Water and energy management are the poster children for this governance failure. Digital infrastructure has now joined the family.

Structural Reforms described here lean on designs developed by others with more in-depth understanding of the sectors. The policies proposed aim to give form and practice to the proposals of national experts, most prominently Professor Dieter Helm¹, who have expertise in the UK’s core infrastructures. The P2030 programme does not claim to have developed the ideal operationalisation of those reforms, but instead aims to provide a vision of how solid and rapid progress could be made.