Infrastructure

Rob Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes with concern the latest GDP figures from the Office for National Statistics, showing that the UK economy has now shrunk in four of the last five quarters; believes that investment in infrastructure is vital to the economy’s short term recovery and long term prosperity; further notes that, half way through the Government’s term of office, many of the major projects promised in the National Infrastructure Plan are yet to start work; further notes the admission of the Deputy Prime Minister, in the House Magazine of 24 January 2013, that the Government cut capital spending too deeply, and that figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility show that in the first three years of this Government’s term it has spent £12.8 billion less in capital investment than the last Government had planned; further believes that private sector investment has also been hit by weak demand and confidence in the UK’s flat-lining economy, and uncertainty resulting from the Treasury’s dithering, delay and lack of leadership; welcomes the independent review of long-term infrastructure planning undertaken by Sir John Armitt; and calls on the Government to act now to kick start the UK’s flat-lining economy by genuinely bringing forward infrastructure investment including building thousands more affordable homes.

We have secured the debate to urge the Government to take action to invest in infrastructure projects to create jobs and to boost confidence in our flagging economy, and to strengthen our productivity and competitiveness for the future. We all recognise the importance of infrastructure investment. The Prime Minister has said that

“getting construction projects off the ground is critical.”

The Chancellor agrees, saying that

“investing in Britain’s economic future is the priority of this Government”

and adding that infrastructure investment was critical in

“laying the foundations for future economic success.”

It should come as no surprise that the Government’s grand rhetoric has not been matched by grand actions. Dithering without a strategy for growth, they have cut too far and too fast, choking off demand and stifling the economic recovery.

[Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady join me in thanking the Chancellor and the Government for the £600 million Heathrow link investment that they will be making in my constituency?

[Rachel Reeves]

Maybe the hon. Gentleman would like to intervene again and tell me when that investment is going to happen. The reality is that so much of the investment is not happening right now when we need jobs and growth. We have lost more than 120,000 construction jobs since the Government came to power.

[Mr Wilson]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way a second time. Would she like to join me in welcoming the £12 million investment in the University Technical college that is opening in September in my constituency?

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Carmichael]

rose—

[Mr Rob Wilson]

rose—

[Rachel Reeves]

I have already given way to the hon. Members.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend is right, and what she says makes the point I am making: a long-term strategic view of where we need to invest is crucial. Unfortunately, by the time the then Deputy Prime Minister had decided that we did need to have new roads after all, he had fallen prey to a new fad, regional assemblies—remember them? Having created those unnecessary and unwanted bureaucracies, they needed to be given something to do. What were they given to do? They were given the task of reviewing and prioritising every proposed regional road scheme that had previously been about to proceed. Projects that had been about to commence were delayed for years as regional bureaucrats invented methodologies to reprioritise them. The result was that, 13 years after Labour took office, the A21 road scheme in my constituency and countless other projects around the country languished undelivered.

The Opposition motion talks about dither and delay, which is pretty ripe stuff considering the sorry saga of their roads policy and, for that matter, their stewardship of British energy policy. In July 2009, after 12 years in office, the then Government announced that they expected to have to resort to power cuts in the years ahead. They even published a chart in their strategy for energy predicting an annual shortfall of 3,000 MWh by 2017—a truly shameful and damaging admission for the Government of a developed nation after 12 years in power.

How did things reach that point? As on the economy, when it came to infrastructure, the previous Administration took a typically ostrich-like pose to the challenges of the future. They knew for 12 years that, for example, most of our nuclear power stations and most of our polluting coal-fired power stations would have to close in the decade ahead—indeed, they signed the agreement to close down those power plants—but, unbelievably, by the time they finally made up their mind about nuclear new build, it was already too late to have the new stations up and running before the old ones closed down. How is that for dither and delay? They did not even get around to the long overdue reform of energy markets on which investment in new capacity depends. That surely is something that marks the record of Labour’s first and last Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, whose name escapes me just now.

This Government have recognised the importance of infrastructure to the long-term prosperity of the British economy in a way that Labour never understood. We have published for the first time a national infrastructure plan, comprising £310 billion of investment in the most strategically important projects—keeping in mind the point my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) made about the importance of looking ahead and looking at where those investments are needed—in sectors such as transport, energy and communications in the period to 2015 and beyond. The man who delivered the Olympics in east London with such spectacular success, Lord Deighton, is the Minister in charge of implementing that plan.

Despite inheriting the most disastrous set of public finances that any Government have bequeathed to their successors outside wartime, we are not only investing in infrastructure, but increasing that investment. Public sector infrastructure investment from 2010 to 2012 was £33 billion a year, which is £4 billion more than during the previous Parliament, and as the National Audit Office states in its report, “Planning for economic infrastructure”:

“Future investment is expected to exceed recent levels.”

Last year’s autumn statement included a further £5.5 billion of investment, including £1.5 billion for the strategic road network. That includes upgrades to the M1, the M3, the M6 and the A60 at Immingham; £378 million to upgrade the A1 between Leeming and Barton, as part of a much-needed drive to bring the A1 up to motorway standard between Newcastle and the M25; a new link between the A5 and M1; and dualling of the A30. On 27 of the road and rail schemes announced in the 2011 autumn statement either construction has already started or work is due to begin this year, including on the A453 widening, the A11 Fiveways to Thetford improvement, and the A43 Corby link road, which will be of interest to the hon. Member for Corby (Andy Sawford).

This Government are ushering in the largest programme of investment in the railways since Victorian times, with £9.5 billion of capital investment allocated from 2014 to 2019. That includes £1 billion to electrify the Great Western line between London and south Wales, as the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) will recognise; £500 million for the north-west and trans-Pennine electrification scheme, for which work is already under way; £800 million to electrify the midland main line and increase its speed, which I would have thought the hon. Member for Corby would welcome; and £500 million for the northern hub, which is of benefit to all the cross-Pennine services.

This Government are committed to investing in Britain’s infrastructure for the long term. The first phase of High Speed 1 will be followed by phase 2, which will revolutionise rail travel in Britain, with 211 miles of new track. I am surprised that the Opposition spokesperson, a Leeds MP, did not mention in her speech a project that will link Birmingham to Leeds and Manchester, create five new stations, and cut journey times from Birmingham to Leeds, for example, from two hours to one hour. I should have thought that the hon. Member for Leeds West would mention that. I should have thought that northern MPs would mention the cut in journey times from London to Manchester from two hours eight minutes to one hour eight minutes. The hon. Lady talks about the time it takes to build the track. If we had commenced in 1997, when Labour took power, we could be looking forward to buying our tickets for that railway now.

[Mr Rob Wilson]

My right hon. Friend is delivering a powerful response. In his list of major infrastructure projects, he forgot to mention Reading station, an £800 million investment, and Heathrow rail at £600 million. He mentioned the £1 billion electrification project to south Wales. Will he join me in asking the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) to apologise for her comments about Reading UTC? It was disappointing to see her laughing at such an investment in skills when I raised it earlier.

[Greg Clark]

It is disappointing when the Opposition treat these things as matters of levity rather than of seriousness that should be pursued. I neglected to mention the improvements to Reading station only because if I were to list all the investments that are taking place, I would detain the House for longer than I have done already.

Had Labour in government taken a greater interest in the long-term future of our railways and of our cities and begun action immediately when it took office, we could have been looking at a high-speed line to Birmingham and beyond opening before the end of this Parliament. High-speed rail is a long-term project. It takes a long time to execute, but even in the two and a half years that this Government have been in office, we have increased the pace of delivery on the ground. As well as six national road schemes funded since October 2010, 17 local transport schemes approved by the Government are already under construction, including the Mansfield interchange, the Kingskerswell bypass and the Portsmouth northern road bridge, and by May 2015, 36 of these vital new schemes will be open.

We are changing the way that decisions are made in funding infrastructure investment. Why should it be the case, as it has been for the past 13 years, that our great cities should have to come cap in hand to London to beg for the investment that they need? Our programme of city deals has given the right of initiative back to the civic and business leaders of the cities themselves. Greater Manchester is, as a result, investing over £2 billion of its own resources in transport infrastructure, and it is able to do so because it has negotiated a city deal that allows it to share directly in the increased prosperity of the area that would otherwise flow to the Treasury. City deals have been struck with each of the eight biggest English cities outside London, and I am currently examining expressions of interest from 20 more cities, from Plymouth to Sunderland, from Preston to Portsmouth.