Treasury Committee — hearing of 23 June 2026: transcript & video

00:07 - 01:38

Speaker 1

Order, order. Welcome to the Treasury Select Committee on the 23rd of June 2026. Today we're examining the work of the National Infrastructure and... I'm already forgetting the name because it's changed its name. The NISTA, which is the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, which has been formed from the National Infrastructure Commission and the Infrastructure and Projects Authority.

So in the past, some of us would have scrutinized your predecessor bodies. And this is our first work of NISTA session from the Treasury Select Committee. But I'm delighted today to welcome Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, which obviously examines the work of NISTA as well. And I'm delighted to welcome from my left to right, Jonathan Saks, who's the Chief Economist at NISTA, Becky Wood, who is the Chief Executive of NISTA, and Matthew Vickerstaff, who's the Deputy CEO and Head of Project Finance at NISTA. So a warm welcome, a very warm welcome today to you all.

Becky, you've in some of the stuff that you've sent around to staff, you've talked about how you're now settling in two years after the bringing together of the two organizations. Can you explain the rationale for bringing these two bodies together, and particularly whether there is any risk that you're watering down on the work of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, which was very particularly important in making sure that major government projects were delivering well?

01:38 - 02:37

Speaker 4

Absolutely, thank you Chair, and thank you for offering us this session to give you an update. So in terms of the rationale behind the bringing together of the National Infrastructure Commission and the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, if you'll permit me, I'll call it the IPA perhaps. There's a tremendous opportunity as we had seen it, I think, in bringing together the long-term perspectives on strategy toward the delivery activities that we have across major projects and much of our infrastructure sector. There was also a great deal of learning from things like the National Infrastructure Commission's report in October 2024, I believe, about major costs and the drivers of those costs and the nature and characteristics of the way that we might work differently across the infrastructure sector to bring that strategic thinking in, but also to inform actively some of the interventions we make on delivery in bringing those two organizations together. So the logic was bringing our people together and drawing on both elements of those sort of knowledge bases would enhance delivery.

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