Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander desperately revamped his pie-in-the-sky list of promised major infrastructure projects yesterday to hoots of derision from Labour MPs.

The shameless Lib Dem minister also announced a bargain-basement sale of Britain's last remaining publicly owned assets - despite anger over the recent cut-price sale of Royal Mail.

Labour shadow minister Chris Leslie accused Mr Alexander of simply issuing repeat press releases promising big projects, while in reality work on such schemes had fallen by 15 per cent under this government.

"It is worse than the emperor's new clothes," declared Mr Leslie.

Mr Alexander confirmed that a sale of the government's 40 per cent stake in profitable Eurostar was being considered as part of a £20 billion sell-off of remaining state assets by 2020.

He issued a 145-page document which proclaimed in true Yes Minister-style that "the infrastructure pipeline is a forward-looking, bottom-up assessment of potential infrastructure investment to 2020 and beyond."

He said the overall value of the "pipeline" had increased from £309bn to over £375bn of investment - mostly in energy and transport.

Among projects contained in his national infrastructure plan are:

• £50 million for redevelopment of the railway station at Gatwick Airport,
• Improvements to the A50 around Uttoxeter
• £30m toward construction of a new Garden Bridge across the Thames in London,
• A £1bn extension of London's Northern Line to Battersea Power Station.

Mr Alexander also announced that the government has reached a co-operation agreement with Hitachi and Horizon on financing a new nuclear power station at Wylfa in Ynys Mon (Anglesey).

Major insurance companies have promised to invest £25bn in Britain's infrastructure.

Labour MPs repeatedly challenged the minister's pronouncements, but Mr Alexander retorted that 291 of the 646 projects in the government's infrastructure programme were "under construction."

Former Labour minister Alistair Darling said he was experiencing deja vu.

"I seem to remember announcing a number of these projects myself 10 years ago," he declared amid Commons laughter.

Rail union RMT general secretary Bob Crow protested: "It is typical of this right-wing government that they are prepared to flog off the valuable public stake in Eurostar just as this expanding and important service is moving into a new period of growth."