Tag Archives: national infrastructure commission

Simon Horner

Tory flip-flop on infrastructure planning

By Simon Horner | Mon 5th October 2015 - 5:20 pm

 

In 2008, the Labour government established the Infrastructure Planning Commission to oversee nationally significant projects in England and Wales.

In 2010, the Tory manifesto pledged the abolition of this unelected body to be replaced by an “efficient and democratically accountable system that provides a fast-track system for major infrastructure projects”.

This was one of the Tory planks of the coalition agreement and the Infrastructure Planning Commission was duly abolished in 2012.

A National Infrastructure Commission was promised by Labour in their 2015 manifesto. The Conservatives did not include it in their so-called ‘long-term economic plan’.

Today, we have George Osborne delivering on Labour’s promise – and doing a U-turn just three years after abolishing a very similar unelected body.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 7 Comments
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Recent Comments

  • John B Grout
    Excellent piece, Josh. As for seeking others' thoughts on the pitch, here are mine: Labour and the Greens want to do things for you, the Conservatives and R...
  • David Evans
    It's an interesting article, which gives us more to think about, but when it ends with "Government and politics can strive toward this platform ... giving ind...
  • Neil Sandison
    This one of a series of articles recently published in the Liberal Democrat Voice that defines our social liberal values . Frequently the hot house of Westminst...
  • Pawel Urbanski
    This is the right problem to be working on, and I think the answer may be less about the words than about the moments. In my experience people learn what we sta...
  • Simon Robinson
    It's good to have an MP putting herself forward for this. The manifesto seems a bit vague though. All good thoughts and nothing you can really disagree with, b...