The Prime Minister today revealed details of his "New Deal" to help revive the 海角视频 economy from the Covid-19 crisis in a speech in the West Midlands.
Boris Johnson's message during the high-profile speech in Dudley was "build, build build", and came on the day Leicester became the first city to have its Covid-19 lockdown tightened.
So what exactly was promised by Mr Johnson?
The PM announced the Government will bring forward £5bn of capital investment projects, supporting jobs and the economic recovery, including:
- £1.5bn this year for hospital maintenance, eradicating mental health dormitories, enabling hospital building, and improving A&E capacity. He said this will improve patient care, make sure NHS hospitals can deliver world-leading services and reduce the risk of coronavirus infections.
- £100m this year for 29 projects on the road network "to get Britain moving", from bridge repairs in Sandwell to boosting the quality of the A15 in the Humber region. Plus £10m for development work to unblock the Manchester rail bottleneck, which will begin this year.
- Over £1bn to fund the first 50 projects of a new, ten-year school rebuilding programme, starting from 2020-21. These projects will be confirmed in the Autumn, and construction on the first sites will begin from September 2021.
- £560m and £200m for repairs and upgrades to schools and FE colleges respectively this year.
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- £142m for digital upgrades and maintenance to around 100 courts this year, £83m for maintenance of prisons and youth offender facilities, and £60m for temporary prison places, creating thousands of new jobs.
- £900m for a range of ‘shovel ready’ local growth projects in England over the course of this year and next, as well as £96m to accelerate investment in town centres and high streets through the Towns Fund this year. This will provide all 101 towns selected for town deals with £500k-£1m to spend on projects such as improvements to parks, high streets, and transport.
- A £400m national housing fund allowing developers to build homes across the country while protecting the Green Belt and clearing up derelict land.
As well as the above list, Mr Johnson said the 海角视频 would design and build the world's first long-haul plane that did not create air pollution, which he described as "jet zero."
Health Secretary Matt Hancock would soon publish a list of 40 new hospitals to be built or rebuilt, he said.
The Government would work with the opposition to reform social care funding so that people no longer need to sell their homes, he said.
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Mr Johnson stressed the Goverment's continued support for the HS2 high speed line and the proposed Northern Powerhouse Rail line.
He said there would be 4,000 new zero-carbon buses, and a "massive new plan" for cycleways across the country.
Mr Johnson also vowed to back West Midlands Mayor Andy Street's plan to bring a "gigafactory" - a massive factory building batteries for electric vehicles - to the West Midlands. Mr Johnson said: "We will back that vision. This government will back that vision."
Mr Street and council leaders across the country have asked the Government for £250m to create a gigafactory, saying it could create 10,100 jobs.
He said Chancellor Rishi Sunak was working on a plan, called "Project Speed", to reduce red tape to ensure infrastructure schemes could be built more quickly.
The Government is "determined to use this crisis finally to tackle this country's great unresolved challenges of the last three decades", Mr Johnson pledged.
He said: "To build the homes, to fix the NHS, to solve social care, to tackle the skills crisis, to mend the indefensible gap in opportunity and productivity and connectivity between the regions of the 海角视频.
"To unite and level up, and 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, we need now to distil the very best of the psychic energy of the last few months.
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"Let's take the zap and elan of the armed services who helped to build the Nightingales. Let's take the selflessness and the love of the health and the care workers and the charities.
"The public spirit and the good humour of the entire population. And let's brew them together with the superhuman energy of Captain Tom - bounding around his garden at the age of 100 and raising millions for charity.
"Let's take that combination, that spirit: bottle it, swig it. And I believe we will have found if not quite a magic potion, at least the right formula to get us through these dark times."