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Nick Clegg has used a speech at the London School of Economics to outline the Coalition鈥檚 commitment to infrastructure, promising 鈥渁 gear shift in government to unblock the system and get the money out the door鈥�.

The Deputy Prime Minister said on Wednesday that the Government will focus on 鈥渋nvestments that transform growth potential鈥�, citing transport, energy, and digital communications as key sectors.

Pledging to start 鈥渞amping up our sales pitch鈥� in pursuit of investment, Clegg said the government would prioritise 40 key infrastructure projects including Crossrail and improvements to the M1 and M25 motorways.

He admitted that the government has tended to focus on specific infrastructure projects rather than setting out an overall vision, and said investors have hesitated to commit financially because they didn鈥檛 see a long-term strategy.  

鈥淚鈥檝e asked Lord Green to use his Trade and Investment Committee to get our plan out there. Next week, Lord Sassoon will travel to Canada to pitch to pension fund investors. Later this month, Lord Green will do the same to leaders of the Gulf Sovereign Wealth Funds.

鈥淲e鈥檙e targeting the Middle East, Latin America and China, where there are investors with five year investment plans of over 拢150bn each. We鈥檙e also going to be much more proactive with institutional investors here at home too.鈥�

The Regional Growth Fund, chaired by Michael Heseltine, has been ordered to prioritise infrastructure projects when reviewing bids for its second round of funding.

Local communities could also soon get more control over their long-term infrastructure investment, as transport secretary Philip Hammond plans to give them more power over the funding and decisions for transport schemes.

The Government is also drawing up plans which would let councils borrow against future growth from locally raised business rates.