This will enable long-stalled projects to be built at last, such as a new east-west rail link (CrossRail) and an extension of the Docklands light railway to London's City Airport.
Just a week earlier the government reversed its position on pipeline ownership, giving him and his peers a provisional green lightto build a 2m-barrel-a-day link from the oilfields of Western Siberia to the northern port of Murmansk.