Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said “the answer can’t always be no” when it comes to approving major infrastructure works and planning decisions, in the latest indication the UK’s Labour government will push ahead with controversial projects in a bid to spur economic growth.

“This was the problem in the last government,” Reeves said in an interview with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait in Davos, when asked about potential opposition from the likes of London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband to projects such as airport expansions. “There was always someone that said, ‘Oh yes of course we want to grow the economy but we don’t like investment, we don’t like that wind farm, we don’t like those pylons, we don’t like that airport, we don’t want that housing near us’.”