Published on Liberal Democrat Voice By Simon Horner | Mon 5th October 2015 – 5:20 pm

In 2008, the Labour government established the Infrastructure Planning Commission to oversee nationally significant projects in England and Wales.

In 2010, the Tory manifesto pledged the abolition of this unelected body to be replaced by an “efficient and democratically accountable system that provides a fast-track system for major infrastructure projects”.

This was one of the Tory planks of the coalition agreement and the Infrastructure Planning Commission was duly abolished in 2012.

A National Infrastructure Commission was promised by Labour in their 2015 manifesto. The Conservatives did not include it in their so-called ‘long-term economic plan’.

Today, we have George Osborne delivering on Labour’s promise – and doing a U-turn just three years after abolishing a very similar unelected body.

I personally believe in national oversight of major infrastructure projects so I don’t object to the idea. But George Osborne really needs to explain the Tories’ complete incoherence on this issue. What has changed since 2012? And what about the cost to the taxpayer of abolishing a quango only to reinstate something very similar three years later.

Its time to expose the myth that the terms ‘Conservative’ and ‘economic competence’ go together.

* Simon Horner was Lib Dem candidate for North-East Scotland (European Parliament) in 1989 and 1994 and for North Tayside (Westminster) in 1992.