30.06.20
Boris Johnson to announce "New Deal" for jobs and infrastructure
The Prime Minister Boris Johnson will today (June 30) announce a “New Deal” with jobs and infrastructure embedded into economic growth.
Speaking in the West Midlands today, the Prime Minister will confirm the ‘build, build, build’ notion, by announcing plans to bring forward £5bn of capital investment projects that support jobs and economic recovery.
Projects being announced, aiming to upgrade infrastructure and skills across the country, include:
- A hospital maintenance programme worth £1.5bn.
- Over £1bn to fund a ten-year school rebuilding programme.
- £900m for a variety of ‘shovel ready’ local growth projects, as well as £96m for the Towns Fund.
- £560m and £200m for repairs and upgrades to schools and FE colleges.
- £142m for digital upgrades and maintenance.
- £100m for 29 projects on the road network to ‘get Britain moving’.
- £40m to boost local conservation projects.
The Prime Minister is expected to say:
“It sounds positively Rooseveltian. It sounds like a New Deal. All I can say is that if so, then that is how it is meant to sound and to be, because that is what the times demand. A government that is powerful and determined and that puts its arms around people at a time of crisis….
“…this is a government that is wholly committed not just to defeating coronavirus but to using this crisis finally to tackle this country’s great unresolved challenges of the last three decades.
“To build the homes, to fix the NHS, to tackle the skills crisis, to mend the indefensible gap in opportunity and productivity and connectivity between the regions of the UK. To unite and level up.
“To that end we will build build build. Build back better, build back greener, build back faster and to do that at the pace that this moment requires.”
The Government will also be publishing a National Infrastructure Strategy in Autumn, covering energy networks, road and rail, flood defences and waste and the Chancellor will provide an update on the economy next week.
The Prime Minister will finish by saying:
“If we deliver this plan together, then we will together build our way back to health.
“We will not just bounce back, we will bounce forward – stronger and better and more united than ever before.”
Image credit: Toby Melville/PA Wire/PA Images
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