We’re ‘not very good’ at infrastructure, says UK government

In his Autumn Statement, the UK’s chancellor of the exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, announced that spending on the country’s largest rail and energy projects would be maintained.

At the same time – and in answer to a question about the unprecedented budget for the country’s mammoth High Speed 2 (HS2) rail project – he admitted that, “the increases in budget for HS2 are disappointing but I think a strong economy needs to have consistency of purpose and that means saying that we will make sure that we are a better connected country and the lack of those connections is one of the fundamental reasons for the differences in wealth between north and south which we are so committed to addressing.”