Westminster Bills Risk £1.2bn Birmingham Infrastructure Projects

Three bills currently progressing through Parliament carry direct consequences for Birmingham residents: the Transport (Infrastructure Funding) Bill, the Skills England Bill and the Employment Rights Act 2025 secondary regulations now being debated in committee. Taken together, they touch roads, rail, apprenticeships and workers' rights across the city. West Midlands Combined Authority figures put the combined projected public investment at stake at roughly £1.2 billion over the current Parliament, subject to how the legislation finally passes and what conditions it attaches to funding.

The timing matters. Birmingham City Council has operated under a Section 114 notice since September 2023, which has frozen most discretionary capital spending and left the authority dependent on central government grant settlements and combined authority mechanisms to advance infrastructure and employment programmes. Any shift in how Westminster distributes infrastructure money, or what match-funding requirements it imposes, flows directly into decisions about which Birmingham projects proceed and which are deferred again.

Transport and Roads: What Birmingham Stands to Gain or Lose

The Transport (Infrastructure Funding) Bill proposes a reformed City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement, replacing the previous CRSTS framework that ran from 2022 to 2027. Under the new settlement structure, the West Midlands is expected to receive a multi-year allocation to cover bus network enhancements, the Sprint rapid transit extensions along the A34 and A45 corridors, and cycling infrastructure. The bill's draft text requires combined authorities to publish a deliverables schedule within six months of Royal Assent, which transport advocates say is a tighter accountability mechanism than past arrangements. Bus passengers in Selly Oak, Erdington and Handsworth, where services were cut between 2021 and 2023, would be among the first groups affected if the funding flows as the government says it will.

The bill also contains provisions on highway maintenance block grants. The Asphalt Industry Alliance's 2025 survey found that West Midlands local authorities faced a road repair backlog valued at £651 million. If the block grant formula changes under the new legislation, Birmingham's share could rise or fall depending on the population and deprivation weighting the final regulations adopt. The city's highways department has flagged 47 kilometres of B-road in the east of the city as requiring structural resurfacing within the next two years.

Jobs and Skills: The Skills England Bill and Local Apprenticeships

The Skills England Bill, introduced in late 2024 and now at report stage in the Lords, proposes folding the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education into a new body, Skills England, with a mandate to align training provision to local labour markets. For Birmingham, where the unemployment rate stood at 7.2 percent in the three months to March 2026 according to ONS figures, the practical question is whether the new body will redirect levy funding toward sectors where the city has structural shortfalls: green construction, digital infrastructure and health and social care.

Local advocates note that Birmingham's further education colleges, including Birmingham Metropolitan College and South and City College Birmingham, have argued that the current apprenticeship levy system disproportionately benefits large national employers rather than small and medium enterprises concentrated in the city's manufacturing and logistics sectors. The bill's provisions on levy transfer flexibility, if the Lords amendments survive, would allow larger employers to transfer up to 50 percent of unspent levy funds to SMEs in defined local areas, up from the current 25 percent cap. Policy analysts say this single change could unlock several million pounds annually for smaller firms in the city taking on new apprentices.

The Employment Rights Act 2025 secondary regulations, due to come into force in October 2026, will extend day-one unfair dismissal protections and strengthen zero-hours contract rules. Birmingham has one of the highest concentrations of zero-hours contract workers in England's metropolitan areas. The regulations are expected to affect an estimated 38,000 workers in the city, according to modelling published by the Low Pay Commission in April 2026.

Parliament rises for summer recess on 22 July. The Transport bill is scheduled for its Lords second reading before the recess, while the Skills England bill returns to the Commons for consideration of Lords amendments in September. Birmingham City Council's strategic programmes team has indicated it will publish an impact assessment of all three measures in August, which will feed into the council's budget strategy for 2027-28.