25 Jun 2026

Lord O’Neill of Gatley — Why He Favours Construction Build

Lord Jim O’Neill (Terence James O’Neill, Baron O’Neill of Gatley, born 17 March 1957) is an English economist, former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and former Conservative government minister, serving as Commercial Secretary to the Treasury in the Second Cameron Ministry from May 2015 to September 2016. He is a crossbench life peer in the House of Lords.

His enthusiasm for construction build — particularly large infrastructure — flows directly from his core economic thesis, and can be summarised under four heads:

1. Infrastructure as a Fiscal Multiplier

Lord O’Neill’s position, stated publicly and on record in the UK Parliament, is unambiguous. In his view, infrastructure projects with big positive multipliers are ones where governments should borrow money and build them, and that will help boost the trend rate of growth. He has described the failure to progress major projects as, in his word, “bonkers” — noting that “we can never do anything because somebody’s always got a reason why it should be stopped once it starts.”

This is, viewed through the Ryanair lens, precisely Michael O’Leary’s position on airport terminals and runways: if the demand is there and the numbers stack up, the institution that refuses to commission even the study to test that proposition is the problem, not the project.

2. Geographic Inequality and Regional Productivity

Lord O’Neill is the architect of the Northern Powerhouse concept. His Cities Growth Commission identified infrastructure — both transport and digital — as the second of six pillars required to reverse the UK’s chronic geographic inequality, alongside education, skills, private sector engagement, and local ambition. He has consistently argued that transport infrastructure is not a cost to the public purse but a supply-side productivity intervention.

3. The Independent Appraisal Gap

Lord O’Neill has stated publicly that on major projects — whether Heathrow, Hinkley Point, HS2 or Hammersmith Bridge — we never see from any independent body whether doing something better with them is going to have any benefit or not, and instead get “fed sort of leaked things in the media.”

This is a precise analogy for the Strangford Lough Crossing position. DfI has produced no independent study. Its cost figures moved from “in and around £300 million” (3 February 2026) to “in excess of £500 million” (11 May 2026) with no commissioned work between the two statements. Lord O’Neill’s framework would identify that as exactly the kind of institutional behaviour that prevents good infrastructure decisions — the equivalent of briefing the media rather than commissioning the study.

4. The Election Cycle Problem

Lord O’Neill has noted that “infrastructure projects take far longer than the five-year election cycle” and that “the whole cyclical way of life within government, and the way in which it relates to big projects means they get stuck.” His remedy is independent appraisal with genuine authority — precisely what a TAG-compliant feasibility study commissioned at £250,000–£500,000 would provide for the Strangford Lough Crossing.

The Campaign Parallel

The Strangford Lough Crossing Campaign’s singular ask — a Ministerial direction to commission an independent feasibility study, estimated at £250,000–£500,000 per specialist industry advice — maps directly onto Lord O’Neill’s published framework. The Department refuses to commission the instrument that would test whether the economic justification exists. Lord O’Neill’s published view is that this institutional behaviour is the central failure of UK infrastructure governance.

The campaign website at www.strangfordloughcrossing.org carries the full evidential base, including the Quintin QS TAG Appraisal (March 2026) and the interactive appraisal model at slc-feasibility-dashboard.netlify.app, which together represent exactly the kind of independent analytical work Lord O’Neill has consistently called for.

Note: Lord O’Neill has no documented connection to the Strangford Lough Crossing Campaign. The above is an analysis of his published economic positions as they bear on the campaign’s core argument, not an attribution of support.