The government is taking steps to reform the Highways Agency - as announced in the Queen's Speech - to give it more freedom in its day-to-day operation. But the success of the reforms will depend on how the bill introducing them is implemented. The Infrastructure Bill was laid before parliament on 5 June for the formality of a first reading to the House of Lords. The bill proposes to reform the Highways Agency (HA) from a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation (quango) into a government-owned company (go-co). This will make the HA a legally separate government-owned company, limited by shares, with the secretary of state for transport the sole shareholder. The bill was put to the Lords for its second reading on 18 June and will now be put to detailed line by line examination at the committee stage on 3 July.
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