PM must not break vow to power up North’s rail links
IS BORIS Johnson going back on his word to upgrade the Leeds and Manchester rail link as a matter of national urgency?
The PM’s planned ‘decade of investment’ speech today, and need to speed up key projects, contrasts with the tone of policy papers due to be discussed by West Yorkshire Combined Authority on Friday which suggest the project is not on political track.
And while WYCA officials indicate on their briefing paper that this matter is not a ‘key decision’, they should reappraise this in light of Department for Transport (DfT) developments.
Apologies for the acronyms, but their report says: “It is understood that the refreshed Outline Business Case (OBC) for TransPennine Route Upgrade (TRU) was recently approved by the DfT’s Investment, Projects and Delivery Committee (IPDC) in April 2020.”
Fine, but it then hints at a significant scaling back: “We understand the IPDC was asked to support a baseline OBC programme for partial electrification and, in parallel, also endorse further development work for a full electrification option…”
And then the hint of more delays: “We understand Ministerial and Treasury approval is now being sought to release funding to Network Rail for further design and development work in 2020.”
An update will be provided by the Department for Transport on July 29 to the Transport for the North board. The answers had better be good.
After all, the TransPennine Route Upgrade scheme has been characterised by broken promises ever since its inclusion in the 2011 Autumn Statement. Both the 2015 and 2017 General Election campaigns here saw the Tories promise to fully electrify this key route – and then go back on their word.
One of the most unreliable rail routes in the UK, phrases like “partial electrification” suggest improvements are being scaled back on a line built by the Victorians between two great cities and already operating at capacity. A 36mile route integral to the wider Northern Powerhouse Rail project still in its infancy, stations like Marsden don’t have step free access for the disabled. That’s not right. It’s also illegal.
Yet contrast this with Mr Johnson’s promise to Tory activists in Exeter on June 28, 2019, during his party’s leadership hustings. “I want to be the Prime Minister who does Northern Powerhouse Rail.”
On becoming PM in late July 2019, he travelled to Manchester days later and reiterated his pledge. “I am going to deliver on my commitment to that vision with a pledge to fund the Leeds to Manchester route.”
Or last December’s Tory manifesto. “We will build Northern Powerhouse Rail between Leeds and Manchester and then focus on Liverpool, Tees Valley, Hull, Sheffield and Newcastle.”
The PM was clear. So, too, Grant Shapps, the most dynamic Transport Secretary of recent times in his response to the Budget in March. The Government, he confirmed to MPs, was “already committed” to the Manchester to Leeds upgrade.
Or Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, during an interview with The Yorkshire Post.
Asked if this specific scheme was a test of trust in the PM, he said: “It is important. If we can connect up our Northern cities, in the same way we connect up communities across London, the economic entity you would create would punch globally. It would be amazing.”
From my dealings, I sense that both the Chancellor and Transport Secretary are frustrated by the lack of progress – hence the task force being headed by Mr Sunak to oversee delivery as the focus of Covid-19 shifts to economic recovery.
And that is why the aforementioned report is so perturbing. As one transport expert observed: “I’ve seen enough solicitors’ letters to know what ‘it is understood that’ means, and this appears twice, indicating that WYCA are getting limited information which they can’t corroborate.
“This is the scheme which was announced in the Autumn Statement 2011. Eight and a half years later, a committee of nameless civil servants down in London have apparently decided that less than half the route will be electrified.”
Yet a retired former 10 Downing Street civil servant offered a contrary view when asked for their insight. “This is a political failure. It is simply no good blaming civil servants. They work to political direction,” they ventured.
“Someone has taken their eye off the ball and that the Civil Service, having been told to economise, is reducing the scheme in Yorkshire. This is eminently a matter for the politicians. What’s going on? Why, if you want to level up, are you not doing so?”
It’s a point that Boris Johnson needs to answer today. One year after promising to deliver this scheme, it is also now a question of trust.
The PM was clear. So, too, Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary. The Government, he confirmed to MPs, was “already committed” to the Manchester to Leeds upgrade.