Transport secretary Grayling backs new roads, trains and planes to "help change my country"

The transport secretary Chris Grayling signalled the Government "needs to press ahead with HS2," and authorise a new runway in South East England as he vowed to "put the passenger and driver first".

Grayling told the Conservative Party conference that he had "always wanted the job of transport secretary" to "make a real difference to people's lives," as he hailed "new roads," "more space" on the railway and a new runway to "send a signal to the world that Britain is open for business". The Chancellor had earlier bemoaned "decades of under-investment" leaving infrastructure "languishing near the bottom of the developed-countries' league table".

Due to announce the detailed plans for phase two, Grayling said HS2 would help motorists by creating space on the railways to allow freight to be shifted off roads and overcrowding to be eased on other routes, "a new, 21st Century, Elizabethan era for our railways". He acknowledged the DfT was "running to keep up" given "more and more people want to travel".

Grayling, who had campaigned to leave the EU, added that transport "is a great area to work in," and encouraged more people to train in the sector so that they could say "I built that station, or that road, or that train... I helped change my country".