Speaker’s orders

Transport transparency needed

THE YORKSHIRE Post’s

longstanding call for a full-time and Cabinet-level Northern Powerhouse Minister, regularly answering questions in Parliament on a regular basis and being accountable for Government policy here, is further vindicated by the latest tetchy exchanges on transport spending.

This saw HS2 Minister Andrew Stephenson respond to a Labour MP criticising an apparent 40 per cent cut in Transport for the North’s funding by saying: “The Prime Minister is always right.”

However it prompted Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the very fair-minded Speaker and longstanding MP for a Lancashire seat, to gently point out to Mr Stephenson that “you might be proved wrong”.

It was a significant and telling rebuke just a day after Boris Johnson had, just 24 hours earlier, dismissed questions about TfN board papers purporting to show a reduction in core funding from £10m in 2020-21 to £6m in the forthcoming financial year.

Yet, while the £137m now promised for the Hope Valley Line between Sheffield and Manchester is welcome, it is years late and does not make up for the Government’s Town Funds failing to target the most disadvantaged areas as intended, hence the ongoing need for transparency and Ministerial accountability.

Mr Stephenson may think this is a game – and, interestingly, support for HS2 has dwindled significantly since he was given the important brief in February 2020 – but it is not to those families whose lives and livelihoods do depend on public transport improvements and a rebalancing of spending in this region’s favour.

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MORRISONS IS giving away afternoon tea hampers across the UK this Mother’s Day, to celebrate mums in the community.

The firm said Mother’s Day will be different this year with lockdown still in place, but mums across the nation deserve more recognition than ever, having faced all sorts of challenges including home schooling and feeding the family.

Morrisons’ customers will be able to nominate a ‘special’ mum to win a hamper via their local store’s Facebook page, to give back to mums in the community who deserve a treat. Each of Morrisons’ 497 stores across the UK will be taking part.