The prospective returns to infrastructure projects vary. More investment in roads will provide large benefits to motorists and facilitate more trade. Expensive railway projects, offshore wind power and a new nuclear power station are much more dubious uses of scarce resources, where alternative ways of achieving objectives are available. The Treasury should design incentives and encourage regulatory structures that are well-attuned to favour high-return investment and to avoid those that are simply politically driven and are just the convenient use of a ministerial credit card to buy “luxury goods” consumers would otherwise shun.
Telegraph 8th Sept 2016 read more »