Rail Investment and Integrated Rail Plan

Dan Jarvis Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

I declare an interest as a metro Mayor. Also, it would be churlish of me not to acknowledge the fact that both Ministers on the Front Bench—the hon. Members for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) and for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson)—have been unfailingly helpful and cheerful in supporting the work we are trying to do in South Yorkshire, so the critique of the Government’s plans that I am about to make is aimed not at them personally but at decisions that have been made in Downing Street.

When the Prime Minister first set out his levelling-up agenda back in July 2019, he made an unequivocal pledge to fund Northern Powerhouse Rail. Since then, he and his Government have repeated that pledge not once, not twice but 60 times—not in part and not with compromises, but in full. The Prime Minister was right to make those promises, because the delivery of Northern Powerhouse Rail and, indeed, HS2 in full is the least that the north could expect. It is not some extravagant fantasy—another airport in the Thames or bridge over the Irish sea—and it is not special treatment; it is the bare minimum to redress a legacy of decades of neglect.

Set against that neglect, Transport for the North’s plan of investment, spread over 30 years, is entirely reasonable, but instead we have ended up with a cut-price, compromise scheme that leaves Sheffield disconnected from any high-speed link to Manchester or Hull; that does nothing to fix the unacceptably slow and infrequent connection to our sister powerhouse city of Leeds, just 35 miles away; that leaves the great city of Bradford isolated on a branch line; and that does too little to mend the north-south divide and risks widening the east-west divide.

Worse yet, the IRP sets the stage for decades to come. This was the moment to invest in our railway infrastructure for generations to come; it was not the moment to cut corners. Instead, the plan bakes in mediocrity for a generation and delays the structural improvements needed for the fundamental change that levelling up is supposed to be all about. Sadly, all this is par for the course. The Government have a consistent track record of dressing up half measures and telling voters that they amount to transformation. If it means anything, levelling up must mean that, for a change, the north gets what it needs—that we do not get second best.

Let us be clear: this is a betrayal not just of the north but of the whole country.

Northern Powerhouse Rail could have helped to create 850,000 extra jobs and unlock £3.4 billion of gross value added every year. It could have reduced the £14 billion a year regional inequality that it is estimated to cost in lost tax revenue and higher health and benefit spending, but, as it stands, the IRP only confirms the utter poverty of vision of this Government and the insincerity of their pledges. Perhaps some people are so used to this that they have forgotten to be outraged, but I say to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I have not, and enough is enough.