{"id":6800,"date":"2015-11-16T14:26:31","date_gmt":"2015-11-16T14:26:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=6800"},"modified":"2015-11-16T16:18:03","modified_gmt":"2015-11-16T16:18:03","slug":"the-commission-of-omission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=6800","title":{"rendered":"The commission of omission"},"content":{"rendered":"
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At the end of October the chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, revealed the eight names on the new infrastructure commission led by former Labour transport secretary Lord Adonis.<\/p>\n

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The original idea for an infrastructure commission came from\u00c2\u00a0Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0former\u00c2\u00a0shadow chancellor Ed Balls.\u00c2\u00a0The commission was designed to look to the long term\u00c2\u00a0and set infrastructure priorities based on \u00e2\u20ac\u0098cross- party consensus\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.<\/p>\n

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Having now established the commission, George Osborne indicated that in his forthcoming spending review he would outline how the \u00c2\u0141100bn pounds worth of infrastructure projects will be delivered.<\/p>\n

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The current crisis in the steel industry has highlighted the need for steel to be at the heart of major infrastructure projects.<\/p>\n

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Disappointing<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n

So\u00c2\u00a0it is disappointing that nobody with expertise from the trade union movement or a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098heavyweight\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 industrial figure has been appointed to the commission.<\/p>\n

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Sir John Armitt, the former\u00c2\u00a0chairman of the\u00c2\u00a0Olympic Delivery Authority, (where 100\u00c2\u00a0per cent\u00c2\u00a0British Steel was used for infrastructure projects) and Lord Michael Heseltine sit alongside a former member of the Bank of England\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Monetary Policy Committee, a neuroscientist,\u00c2\u00a0a former chief economist at the GLA and the of the Victoria & Albert Museum.<\/p>\n

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Interestingly James Wharton, the invisible minister for the Northern Powerhouse, has asked Lord Heseltine to head up the Tees Valley Inward Investment Initiative<\/a> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to bring foreign investment to the hard-hit area.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u0098Good time to lose your job\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n

You may recall that Heseltine said recently<\/a> it was a good time for UK steelworkers to lose their jobs. That should give union members from Redcar and those facing job losses at ICL\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s potash mine<\/a> in the area lots of confidence.<\/p>\n

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If the infrastructure commission is to do its job properly it must deal with the necessity of using\u00c2\u00a0UK-made steel in our key infrastructure projects.<\/p>\n

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Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite, outlined just five key projects which he described as \u00e2\u20ac\u0098shovel-ready that could bring some security to UK Steel along with enormous national benefits.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 These are:<\/p>\n