Feverish speculation about the Budget. Sue Gray’s fall and Morgan McSweeney’s rise. A big Bill on Employment Rights setting up a battle between business and the unions. An Investment Summit coming up to show off Britain’s untapped potential. A Nations and Regions extravaganza today. The Conservative Party leadership slog. 100 Days of a Labour Government. Boris Johnson’s book... But something else snuck out this week that deserves far more attention than it’s getting. An unheralded speech yesterday from Chief Secretary Darren Jones promising ‘a vision for the country’s infrastructure future.’

With Labour’s mission for growth central to its policy agenda, he’s arguably one of the most important people in Government and was certainly one of the party’s most impressive emerging voices in opposition. Yet we’ve hardly heard from him since the election and through the conference period, despite it being abundantly clear that he’s the man with the money, tasked with ‘fixing broken Britain’ and sorting out lots of our crumbling infrastructure. Yesterday Jones broke cover to announce the formation of the imaginatively named ‘National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority’ or ‘NISTA’ – another body to sit alongside the National Infrastructure Commission which will continue with Sir John Armitt at its helm. ‘NISTA’ will be operational from Spring 2025, which is (not at all coincidentally) the same time that we expect the outcomes of a cross-government Spending Review and the unveiling of a 10-year infrastructure strategy.

It’s a carefully timed announcement. Days before the Government’s big investment summit and weeks before a set piece Budget where the Chancellor will change her fiscal rules to allow billions of pounds more in capital spending. Jones’s speech was peppered with soundbites on ‘getting to grips’ with infrastructure project delays, addressing ‘delivery challenges’, and giving business the ‘confidence’ they need to invest. We’ve heard soundbites like these before. It sounds cynical, but our problem in the UK is always the gap between a government’s rhetoric and the actual actions which give big business and infrastructure providers in particular, confidence. Will yet another 'infrastructure body' fix that?

Jones, Reeves, Starmer et al. know this is a major problem when you’re relying so much on the private sector and inward investment to lead an infrastructure revolution. Their success in delivering the new and improved infrastructure the country needs is going to rest on taking very big and uncomfortable political calls on expensive projects.

Will they have the courage to face down siren calls in key constituencies?

And will they have the right joined-up, strategic approach and commitment to rigour and quality in project oversight?

The five-year parliamentary pattern militates against long-term planning for infrastructure projects, but despite its communications challenges recently, Labour sits on a huge majority and has a minister in Jones who seems (from his rhetoric at least) to understand that the new government needs to own big projects from start to finish, with real leadership and consistency of message. Let’s hope Jones and ‘NISTA’ can back up the rhetoric and deliver.