... and line in North is set to be scrapped

GRANT Shapps was facing fury last night after saying there ‘wasn’t really much point’ to a longpromised railway across northern England.

A new high-speed link between Liverpool and Hull via Bradford is set to be scrapped.

The Business Secretary insisted that much of the benefit of Northern Powerhouse Rail could be delivered by upgrading existing lines, at a much lower cost.

But his comments sparked a backlash from campaigners as well as fresh fears that more vital infrastructure projects will be scrapped in the Autumn Statement later this month as the Government desperately tries to fill a £50billion budget black hole.

The 2019 Conservative manifesto declared its commitment to Northern Powerhouse Rail, also dubbed HS3, as part of plans to ‘level up’ the UK’s cities by improving connections between them.

But Mr Shapps, formerly transport secretary, has now claimed

‘No point blasting new tunnels’

that the new £ 6billion highspeed railway across the Pennines has been dropped.

Instead the Government will scale back the proposals to those included in last year’s Integrated Rail Plan, costing about £17billion, involving upgrades and electrification of existing lines.

He told the BBC: ‘There wasn’t really much point in going and blasting new tunnels through the Pennines.’ But he insisted: ‘It’s not true to say we’re not delivering on what we said we would do on levelling up the North.’

But Labour’s transport spokesman Louise Haigh said: ‘A lost decade of broken Tory promises has left the North with second-rate infrastructure and rail services in crisis.’ And Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership lobby group, said: ‘This option saves little to nothing to Treasury coffers now.’