Industry leaders have called on Andy Burnham, widely expected to the UK’s next prime minister, to create a dedicated Department for Infrastructure as one of his first acts in Downing Street.

The Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE) has written to the newly appointed MP for Makerfield, arguing that no incoming Prime Minister has ever been better placed to understand why a Department for Infrastructure is needed.

The intervention comes as Westminster turns its attention to the incoming prime minister's priorities, with Burnham the sole declared candidate to succeed Keir Starmer as Labour leader.

ACE, the industry body representing the sector that designs and delivers the country's infrastructure, says responsibility for transport, energy, water, housing and digital is scattered across Whitehall, with competing budgets, priorities and timescales producing stop-start funding, duplicated effort and delayed delivery.

The letter makes the case that Burnham experienced the cost of this fragmentation first-hand during nine years as Mayor of Greater Manchester, navigating multiple departments and funding streams to deliver single integrated public transport programmes like the Bee Network. A Department for Infrastructure would hard-wire his joined-up, place-based approach into central government.

ACE argues a Department for Infrastructure would deliver:

• Streamlined delivery: one accountable home for infrastructure policy, planning and funding, and one ministerial champion for infrastructure; ending the delays and duplication created by fragmented departmental ownership.
• Genuine cross-government coordination: integrated decision-making across transport, energy, water and housing, so interdependent projects are planned together rather than in silos.
• A stronger partner for devolution: a single front door for combined authorities, with the mandate and capability to support mayoral infrastructure pipelines, simplify funding routes, and align national and local priorities.
• Pipeline certainty: long-term visibility that gives industry the confidence to invest in the skills, capacity and innovation needed to deliver.
• Better value for the taxpayer: earlier design input, fewer reworked schemes and a delivery model that learns across sectors rather than reinventing it project by project.

Milda Manomaitytė, Chief Executive of ACE, said: "No one in Whitehall absolutely owns infrastructure and it shows. Projects stall between departments, funding stops and starts, and projects get scrapped, delayed or blown overbudget. A Department for Infrastructure would help fix that and give industry the certainty to invest, innovate and deliver.

“Andy Burnham spent nine years on the receiving end of Whitehall's fragmentation. With that experience, he arrives in Downing Street the most qualified to end it."

Ben Brittain, Director of Public Affairs at ACE, added: "Mayors and combined authorities shouldn't have to knock on six Whitehall doors to deliver one integrated programme. The incoming Prime Minister built his reputation proving what joined-up delivery looks like in Greater Manchester. A Department for Infrastructure providing one front door, one pipeline, is how he takes that Manchester model from region to nation from day one."

The consultancy and engineering sector employs over 470,000 people across the UK, contributes more than £39bn to the economy and exports over £11bn in expertise globally each year.

Click here to read the full letter.