The failure of successive governments to invest in infrastructure has meant that the British people have longer commutes, higher energy bills and can’t afford to be homeowners, George Osborne has said.
Launching his national infrastructure commission, the chancellor promised that infrastructure investment would be at the heart of November’s spending review and that the new independent body would think “dispassionately and independently” about Britain’s infrastructure needs.
“We haven’t done enough of that in our country in the past,” the chancellor said. “And as a result British people have to spend longer than they should getting to work; they pay more than they should in energy bills; they can’t buy the homes they want, all because of the failure of successive governments – and the societies that elected those governments – to think long term.
“That has started to change. New railway lines are being laid, new roads are being built, new broadband is being installed. Britain has rediscovered its ambition and we are thinking big again.”
It was announced during the Conservative party’s autumn conference that the former Labour transport secretary Andrew Adonis would resign his party’s whip to chair the commission, a move that was interpreted as a bid for the centre ground on the part of the chancellor.
Speaking at the National Railway Museum in York on Friday, Osborne said the commission would also include the former Conservative deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine and Prof Tim Besley, a former member of the Bank of England’s rate-setting monetary policy committee.
The commission, which will oversee a promised £100bn of infrastructure spending by 2020, will have the initial priorities of examining connections between the big northern cities, London’s transport system and energy infrastructure. It will produce a report at the beginning of each parliament with recommendations for spending on infrastructure projects, though politicians will have the final say.
Osborne, who has overseen a 5.4% fall in infrastructure investment since he took office in 2010, will use the spending review to announce a suite of asset sales which the Treasury expects to raise billions of pounds to be ploughed back into projects.
“The task for the national infrastructure commission will be to think dispassionately and independently about Britain’s long-term infrastructure needs in areas like transport, energy, communication, flood defence and the like,” said Osborne.
“It will collect the evidence, listen to the arguments and will report on what we need to do to build for our future. That will create the kernel around which the national consensus will be created that will guide our democratic decisions and then they will hold us to account for those decisions, hold our feet to the fire.”
Speaking to the BBC’s World at One, the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, said he supported the establishment of a commission but it would be ineffective unless the government committed the necessary funds to infrastructure projects.
“I do [support the idea of a commission] because it was a Labour idea in the first instance,” McDonnell said, describing the appointment of Andrew Adonis as “a good choice”.
“But the reality is … you can set up these commissions but, unless you commit to the financing of the projects themselves, they’ll simply produce reports that gain dust on ministers’ shelves.
“That’s the problem. Under George Osborne, infrastructure spending has declined every year and his current Charter for Budget Responsibility is to decline even further. And we are just not matching our European competitors, which means in the long run we will not be able to compete in a global market.”
