Craig Elder: Creating a national policy that enables private investment to flourish is a priority for the government
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Craig Elder
In his first speech since taking up the post in July, Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey said he will make changes to the Treasury Green Book, which guides decisions on whether public projects represent value for money.
This will involve changing the discount rate to help schemes with long-term potential and introducing analysis into economic potential as part of business case decisions made by government.
Reforming the Treasury Green Book’s discount rate and introducing economic potential analysis into government business case decisions is a welcome signal, but it risks being insufficient without a credible vehicle to deliver investment at the scale the country needs.
The UK has had the lowest investment in fixed assets within the G7 over the past 20 years. Changing the way government appraises projects is a start, but investors need more than revised criteria – they need a structured framework for partnering with the public sector.
A formal public-private partnership (PPP) model has been missing since PFI ended in 2018, despite countries including Canada, Australia and the US using it to deliver more than 1,000 social and economic infrastructure projects worldwide in the intervening years.
The PPP concept is a simple one – private capital funds the upfront costs of a public infrastructure project and recoups this and agreed interest over time – but its mechanics can vary significantly across different models.
Government can learn from the perceived drawbacks of previous models like PFI and PF2 by implementing principles including proportionate risk allocation, auditable social value, and strengthened governance and accountability.
Mr Healey says he wants the private sector to flourish. The autumn budget is the moment to match that ambition with a modern PPP framework that gives investors the long-term certainty they need to back Britain’s infrastructure.
At UKREiiF 2026, the CBI and Browne Jacobson launched a report, titled ‘Pipeline to Progress: Making UK Infrastructure Investable’. This provides a blueprint for modern PPPs built around six pillars: a standardised national legal architecture, proportionate risk allocation, auditable social value, flexible financial structures, strengthened governance and accountability, and a clear delivery pipeline through mayoral and combined authorities.
Craig Elder is partner in the government team at Browne Jacobson
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