Osborne infrastructure plan still lacking ahead of Budget

Schemes willing to get involved with the Treasury's infrastructure investment strategy are becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of detail on the plans.

Greater Manchester Pension Fund chairman Kieran Quinn, whose fund signed up to the Memorandum of Understanding to explore investment ideas with the Treasury, told PP he has “concerns” about the lack of information coming from the Treasury with the Budget just six weeks away.

He said: “I genuinely want to see this work but I also have concerns about whether or not it was just a paragraph in an Autumn Statement. I would have expected by now to have had a much more concrete proposal and understanding of exactly what it is the government wishes us to participate in.

“We have a Budget coming up in a few weeks’ time and we would have expected the Chancellor and the Treasury to have wanted to make good on their statement.”

Chancellor George Osborne announced his plans to “unlock” £20bn from pension funds to invest in the UK National Infrastructure Plan in the Autumn Statement last November. It is understood the Treasury is seeking to set up an investment vehicle run by the private sector to funnel pension fund assets.

London Pensions Fund Authority chief executive Mike Taylor, who also signed up to the MoU, said getting a plan in place by the Budget was not practical but talks would continue.

He added: “It may not be possible to reach any form of agreement that the Chancellor had in mind when he announced it in November by the Budget, but there’s a lot of work being done and that is helping to unblock issues that prevented people from investing in the past. But it’s not going to happen overnight.”

A Treasury spokeswoman said talks were “ongoing” and there would be an update in the next couple of months.