Measures include:

• Turning the Highways Agency into a Government-owned company with stable long term funding to drive down costs to the taxpayer – saving £2.6billion over the next ten years and making the new arms-length company more accountable to Parliament and to road users.

• Improving the nationally significant infrastructure regime by making a number of technical administrative improvements to the Planning Act 2008 following a review of how the Act has operated.

Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin said: ‘Investment in infrastructure is central to the Government’s long-term economic plan and that is why we are spending almost £73bn over the period 2015 to 2021 on transport alone.

‘This Bill will hugely boost Britain’s competitiveness in transport, energy provision, housing development and nationally significant infrastructure projects.

‘These powerful new measures will drive investment, making it easier, quicker and simpler to get Britain building for the future.’

The Infrastructure Bill is available at http://services.parliament.uk/bills/.