Government is going to commit to infrastructure investment to 2020 in the June spending round rather than just the year from 2015-16 as will be the case for most departments, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander (pictured) said last week. And the full plan for HS2 will be delivered, he said.

In a speech to the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce he said: “For key areas of capital expenditure – like infrastructure – we intend to make commitments right through to the end of the decade.

“We will be taking a zero based approach throughout – asking departments to justify the economic value of every line of their capital budgets. When we took such an approach in 2010 it resulted in the most economically important areas being prioritised.

“So investment in transport, for example, was not just protected from cuts, the budget was actually increased in every year which has enabled us to commit to crucial projects like HS2.”

Mr Alexander stressed that Government was determined to build the new high speed railway to the north. “I can assure you that delivering HS2 is another of those tough decisions we will stick to,” he said. “It will connect eight of our biggest cities once it opens, reshaping the UK’s economic geography in the process and support 100,000 jobs across the nation.”

(Photo: HM Treasury)

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