Prime Minister Boris Johnson is on Tuesday expected to promise to spend 5 billion pounds (6.15 billion dollars) on infrastructure projects to kick-start Britain’s economic recovery.
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Johnson plans to say he wants to “build back better” to help the country through the expected severe economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic and Britain leaving the European Union.
The spending programme will also “tackle this country’s great unresolved challenges of the last three decades,” he said in advance excerpts from a speech later Tuesday.
“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,” Johnson said.
The plan includes an extra one billion pounds for school construction over the next two years; 1.5 billion pounds for hospital maintenance and other health infrastructure; plus spending on courts, prisons, roads, bridges and local high streets.
“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,” Johnson added.
In an interview with Times Radio on Monday, Johnson said he expected “bumpy times” ahead for the British economy.
The Resolution Foundation, a London-based think-tank, said Britain needs its “biggest job creation programme in peacetime” to respond to an expected surge in unemployment.
Manufacturers’ group Make UK said British firms were unlikely to recover to their “pre-COVID-19 growth track” until at least 2022.