‘Transport not for the North’

McLoughlin’s timely intervention

THERE WAS a suspicion that Patrick McLoughlin would be a government ‘stooge’ after the Tory grandee’s appointment as the new chair of Transport for the North.

Yet the fact that Lord McLoughlin, a former Transport Secretary and politician who expected loyalty as an ex-chief whip, says the new Integrated Rail Plan “goes against the best interest of people in the North” speaks volumes.

It confirms that this region has been betrayed by the London Government’s decision to scrap the eastern leg of HS2 to Leeds and downgrade Northern Powerhouse Rail.

And his candid admission that the new blueprint “fails to deliver the step-change in rail services that is the only sustainable, long-term solution” is a prescient point ahead of his appearance before a Parliamentary select committee next week.

This comes amid continuing uncertainty about TfN’s future funding, as a government supposedly committed to devolution ‘takes back control’ of the railways, and the new disclosure that the Department for Transport did not consider the economic impact on Bradford when choosing to scale back Northern Powerhouse Rail.

But Lord McLoughlin’s intervention also justifies the sceptical stance adopted by the North’s metro mayors before their criticism of the Integrated Rail Plan was branded ‘irrational’ by Grant Shapps, the current Transport Secretary, in The Yorkshire Post last week.

And, in turn, it will now be far harder for Mr Shapps to dismiss the warning of a predecessor who said when in office that HS2 had to be built in full to Leeds and Manchester to maximise its benefits and who also knows, from his own experience when it comes to electrification schemes, that the most effective way to increase capacity – and, therefore, passenger numbers – is to construct new high-speed lines in tandem with improvements to existing routes.