Osborne: high-speed rail and new runway are "the future," and you "decide or decline"

The Chancellor George Osborne has implored Conservative members, and voters, to "choose the future," by backing transport infrastructure projects including high-speed rail and a new runway.

He told the Conservative party conference: "Big decisions on infrastructure have always been controversial and always will be. The railways were bitterly opposed in the nineteenth century. The motorways were opposed in the twentieth. Let's face it, even today this country has spent forty years failing to take a decision about building a runway in the South East of England."

He asked what choice the "Golden Boys," Matthew Boulton, William Murdoch and James Watt, who are studying their plans for the steam engine in a statue on Birmingham's Broad Street, near the conference, would have made. "Would they have said, our trains may be packed, our roads congested, our transport system can't cope, but we won't build any more roads or new railways?" 

 

In a marked contrast with the UKIP transport focus in its conference at the weekend, he said: "We must choose the future. We will build the high speed rail and decide where to put a runway... you decide, or decline". The Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, in contrast, used his speech last week to attack ministers' "dither and delay" on big projects such as airport capacity.

The Chancellor would also if in Government "find £25bn of spending savings" to eliminate the deficit, including by reducing Whitehall spending at the same rate as it has been reduced in this parliament, saving £13bn.