UPDATE 1-‘Get on with it’: UK advisors call for infrastructure surge

Britain requires tens of billions of pounds of extra infrastructure investment each year between now and 2050 to meet the challenge of climate change and narrow the economic gulf between its rich and poorer regions, government advisors said. As well as new power networks and rail, road and broadband upgrades, big subsidies will be needed to replace domestic gas boilers with heat pumps which poorer households should receive for free, the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) said. It also called on Britain to adopt longer-term thinking after sharp swings in public investment budgets and U-turns on projects such as the High Speed 2 railway which was chopped in half by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak this month, a few weeks after he pushed back a ban on the sale of new petrol cars.