This could be light at end of the tunnel - at last - for our rail woes
More cordial relations and £600m towards Transpennine upgrade bode well for future
AFTER months of open warfare between central and local government over the pandemic response, there is one area in which the mood music is currently a little sweeter.
On northern rail projects, traditionally the subject of much fractious political disagreement between leaders here and those calling the shots in London, the tone has shifted and the pace of ministerial progress, according to Andy Burnham, has seen a ‘gear change.’
In 2019, the background noise was not so soothing. Jake Berry, then Northern Powerhouse minister, seemed to make a habit of actively irritating local politicians - such as when he blamed them for the continued existence of Northern Rail’s franchise, even though behind the scenes they had been lobbying for it to be nationalised for months.
Equally the consensus on Chris Grayling’s tenure as transport secretary doesn’t really need repeating.
For much of last year and the year before, Labour’s Andy Burnham spent a considerable amount of time attacking the government for failing to take action on northern transport woes.
There has been much water under the bridge since then and with leaders here as keen as ever to finally see some progress, the tone has become more conciliatory.
Here’s the current transport secretary Grant Shapps, writing for Conservative Home this week.
“Politically, we are the odd couple - hardly natural allies,” he writes of his relationship with Burnham.
“But we share a desire to rectify this transport deficit, and get things moving. This is practical politics, getting together to solve problems that do not discriminate when it comes to party affiliation.”
Breaking the Whitehall obsession with self-reinforcing investment in the south east was, party politically speaking, at one time a Labour argument. But the 2019 election result - precipitated by Brexit changed the rules. Politicians on both sides of the party divide now have reason to expound it.
Announcing nearly £589m extra towards the upgrade of the
Transpennine route, Shapps noted Greater Manchester’s
Labour mayor
‘was generous in his praise for these initial steps.’ And he’s right Burnham was very upbeat about the latest investment. The Department for Transport press release on the announcement featured a pretty fulsome quote from the mayor welcoming the new cash for Transpennine electrification, twin tracking and freight upgrades, albeit stressing that this cannot be a substitute for Northern Powerhouse Rail.
“These were all of the things we pressed them for,” he told the M.E.N. “You can’t go out there pressing them and then when they do it, find another reason to criticise them.”
Insiders say Shapps and Burnham get on pretty well personally, which doesn’t do any harm. Meanwhile Shapps is viewed as far less partisan or ideological than either Berry or Grayling. But a thawing of relations should come as no great surprise for other reasons too.
The interests of both politicians now align pretty neatly. For Andy Burnham, despite his role not actually including the railways, campaigning on the north’s crippled network has become a hallmark of his first term.
On the government’s side, the need to enact change quickly is an imperative one.
Step up the new ‘northern transport acceleration council’ announced on Thursday, a body focused on delivery that will comprise northern leaders promised a hotline into Grant Shapps as chair. The first phase of the Transpennine upgrade could be one of the projects completed within this Parliament.
One senior local figure notes we’ve been here before, however. “What he’s announced gets announced on a regular basis and has been announced repeatedly over the last eight years,” they note dryly, a reference to years of promises by government stretching back to George Osborne’s days in the Treasury.
But, equally, the government itself wants - and needs - to get things delivered.
Many questions remain. This week’s £600m is only for the first phase of the Transpennine upgrade and when asked by the M.E.N. about the timescale for the wider project, the transport secretary admitted it won’t be done before the next election.
“We’ll have the whole project completed in the 2020s but this part of it completed within this Parliament, so before 2024,” he said.
So theoretically, it could be the best part of a decade before this work - originally slated for the end of 2022 - is finished?
“Yes,” he admitted, before distancing this latest plan from the scheme tabled by Chris Grayling, which never got done.
“What we’re now proposing is, I think, a bigger deal than has been on the cards.
“There’s been a £3bn programme up to now for partial electrification with some additional bits and pieces...but I think we’re very likely to be saying ‘actually, we should be doing this job properly.’
“We should be electrifying throughout and we should get journey times down to 30 minutes, which we’re a long way from at the moment.
“And the package we’ve described up until now doesn’t get us there. So this is upping the game.”
But there is certainly widespread relief at no longer having to deal with Shapps’s predecessor.
“It’s certainly an improvement from Grayling,” says one local official elsewhere of the current situation, while another notes: “It’s like night and day.”
Both sides will have an eye to take credit for progress at the other end, but that may just be how things end up getting done.