Labour vows ‘new dawn’ for rail in North of England if it wins election

Manchester Piccadilly station has struggled with capacity issues (Picture: Getty Images)

The North of England would get a revitalised railway more quickly and cheaply under a Labour government, the shadow transport secretary has said.

On a visit to the train station at Manchester Airport today, Louise Haigh will announce the party’s aim to get its big infrastructure projects in the area finished 25% faster and 20% cheaper than now.

They would include new stations and a boost in the number of passenger journeys, with the extent of the work decided in a independent review led by ex-Siemens boss Jürgen Maier.

However, the Conservatives have accused Labour of failing to commit to ‘a single project’.

Ms Haigh, who was born and brought up in Sheffield, blamed a lack of productivity in the North ‘in large part’ on poor public transport.

In an exclusive chat with Metro, she said: ‘Sheffield and Manchester are the two largest neighbouring cities in Europe that don’t have a motorway between them.

‘Sheffield is the largest city in Europe that doesn’t have a direct rail link to an airport and the North as a whole is losing £16 billion a year in lost growth, thanks to the poor connectivity, the delays and overcrowding that we’re experiencing all the time on the railways.’

If Labour wins the July 4 General Election, she said her Department for Transport would publish a long-term strategy, aligned with a wider ten-year infrastructure strategy.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer with Louise Haigh during a visit to the Hitachi rail manufacturing plant in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham (Picture: Owen Humphreys/PA Wire)

Ms Haigh said: ‘We are not committing to a specific infrastructure plan because we don’t yet know the state of the finances or the state of the delivery of much of the infrastructure that the Tories have promised.’

The plans are reminiscent of proposals in the Conservative Party manifesto to bring ‘more frequent trains, more capacity and faster journeys’ to railways in the North of England with their Northern Powerhouse Rail project.

However, the shadow transport secretary said Tory governments had made similar promises dozens of times in speeches, statements and ‘three consecutive manifestos’, but ‘have been completely unable to deliver it’.

She added: ‘They scrapped HS2. They’ve chopped and changed so often that they’ve ended up costing the taxpayer billions of pounds more in lost revenue, but also in the price of infrastructure.

‘So the Transpennine route upgrade, for example, was promised in 2011. It’s only just under way now, and the NAO estimates that has cost the taxpayer over £150 million more because of the chopping and changing of the project.’

Huw Merriman, the Conservative rail minister (Credits: Ioannis Alexopoulos/LNP/REX/Shutterstock)

A Conservative spokesperson described the plans as ‘just guff’.

They added: ‘Labour haven’t committed to a single project in their manifesto – even Northern Powerhouse Rail is in doubt if they win. Claiming you can do things cheaper and quicker is just spin to hide that.

‘In stark contrast, the Conservative manifesto includes a fully funded plan to deliver transport projects across the North.’

A Liberal Democrat spokesperson said: ‘Passengers have borne the brunt of Conservative chaos, paying more for less on our rail network. The Conservative Government’s mismanagement has caused misery for commuters across the country.

‘The Liberal Democrats would freeze rail fares and establish a new Railway Agency to put commuters first, hold train companies to account and bring in wholesale reform of the broken rail fare system.’

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