National Infrastructure Plan

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome one part of the Statement—the decision to abandon the hare-brained scheme to levy tolls on the A14, which would have led to a mass diversion of trucks and cars on to Cambridgeshire villages.

However, does the Minister agree that the A14 episode illustrates why the Government are delivering so little real infrastructure as they announce ever more grandiose targets and plans? The upgrade of the A14—a vital growth corridor from the east coast ports to the Midlands—was shovel-ready in 2010. One of the first acts of the coalition Government was to cancel it, along with a string of other major road schemes, the expansion of Heathrow and 715 school-building schemes which were all ready to go. Last year, Ministers tried to resuscitate the A14 as a toll road with magic money. Now that scheme has collapsed, we are back to where we were in 2010, except that the costs have gone up by £200 million.

Is this not the story of infrastructure non-delivery on roads, airports and energy, and even more on housing, where completions are at their lowest level since the 1920s? Does this not explain why the ONS says that infrastructure work is down 3.7% in the past year after a fall of 10% in 2012; why the World Economic Forum ranks the UK 24th in infrastructure behind Oman and Barbados; and why today’s Treasury press release on the national infrastructure plan heralds, as one of its greatest advances, the spending of £10 million on new light bulbs in NCP car parks?