John McDonnell MP, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, responding to today’s launch of the National Infrastructure Commission, said:

“We welcome the setting up of the National Infrastructure Commission as it is a Labour policy, it is just sad that it is not being properly funded.

“Public sector investment has gone down since George Osborne became Chancellor, and is now only at 1.7 per cent of GDP coming down from 3.2 per cent of GDP when he first arrived in the Treasury in 2010.

“We urgently need a focus on a strategic state which supports a more productive economy – that’s the way to growth, closing the deficit and improving working people’s standards of living.

“The Chancellor seems to be selling off national assets to fund this commission because he has decided to limit his options with his economically discredited austerity agenda.

“When his failure on infrastructure investment is combined with the lack of support for the steel industry, and the cuts to tax credits, it means that George Osborne has pulled the plug on the Northern Powerhouse before he has been able to put it together.”