Chris Leslie MP, Labour’s Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, responding to the publication of the Government’s National Infrastructure Plan 2014, said:

“This Government is all talk and no action on the vital infrastructure our country needs. For all their reheated announcements, Ministers are failing to get diggers in the ground. They should be embarrassed that infrastructure output has now fallen by 11.5 per cent since May 2010.

“Despite massaging the statistics, the latest ‘plan’ can’t hide the reality that barely a fifth of the projects listed are actually ‘in construction’. And more than three-quarters of the projects won’t be in service until after the next election. Last year the UK Statistics Authority rebuked the Treasury for giving a 'false impression’ and this year their glossy plan has overstated progress again.

“The Government has failed to make any meaningful progress on garden cities and house building has fallen to its lowest peacetime level since the 1920s. Ministers cut flood defence spending by 10 per cent at the beginning of the parliament and are now playing catch up with the Committee on Climate Change saying that current plans could see 80,000 more homes at risk. Government guarantee schemes have been shunned by business and the £20bn Pension Infrastructure Platform has raised just £330m.

“Britain needs a long-term infrastructure plan rather than a short-term politically driven approach. Labour will establish an independent National Infrastructure Commission to ensure we can better identify and deliver our long-term infrastructure needs.”

Last year’s letter from Andrew Dilnot at the UK Statistics Authority rebuking the Treasury for the ‘false impression’ of their Infrastructure Plan 2013 is at the link here:

http://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/reports—correspondence/correspondence/letter-from-sir-andrew-dilnot-to-chris-leslie-mp-06022014.pdf