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Labour’s growth strategy “cannot rest” solely on projects in the south-east, party grandee David Blunkett has warned, as northern leaders intensify their lobbying for investment in June’s spending review.
The former home secretary is leading a new rail investment pitch for Yorkshire, launched by the area’s mayors on Friday, calling on ministers to take the economic potential of the region’s creaking infrastructure seriously.
Separately, the north-west’s two Labour mayors, Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram, are pitching their own plan for a “northern arc”, linking high-growth places via a new railway line.
Both pitches present deliberate northern counterpoints to the “Oxford-Cambridge Arc”, a planned rail link intended as the spine of a growth corridor between the two university cities, which was backed by the chancellor Rachel Reeves in January.
“Economic success and removing disparities across regions and disadvantaged communities cannot rest on high-profile projects like the Oxford to Cambridge link,” Lord David Blunkett, formerly a Sheffield MP, told the Financial Times.
The Oxford-Cambridge Arc has become increasingly totemic among northern Labour politicians concerned that the government is overlooking investment in the region.
Labour’s leadership has recently come under fire from nervous MPs for failing to do enough to draw in voters in northern parts of the country, following huge losses in May’s local elections and in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election.
Northern England currently lacks a formal plan for its creaking rail network, after previous proposals were thrown into chaos by the cancellation of HS2’s eastern and western legs in 2021 and 2023.
Former Conservative chancellor George Osborne, whose “northern powerhouse” economic strategy was largely ditched by his successors, this week called on Reeves to revive his previous plans for high-speed rail links in the north.
Labour has yet to flesh out any details of its own plans, however, beyond a general commitment to improving east-west links in the region.
Ahead of the spending review, due to be published in June alongside a 10-year national infrastructure strategy, Labour mayors across the north are lobbying for development funding and longer-term rail commitments.
In Yorkshire, Blunkett and the region’s three mayors have drawn up a pipeline of upgrades, stretching into the 2040s, warning that rail demand is being suppressed by years of delayed or cancelled schemes.
Their pitch calls on ministers to resolve chronic capacity constraints at Leeds station, stating that the city suffers the worst delays in the country, which then “ripple” across the network and cause a third of the north’s wider rail delays.
It includes shorter-term calls for £2.4bn in investment by 2030 and £14bn in the longer term, arguing rail upgrades could add £20bn to the region’s economy over a decade. Requests include new rolling stock, as well as the electrification of the Leeds to Sheffield line.
Only 26 per cent of Yorkshire’s network is electrified, compared with 45 per cent nationally, says the pitch.
“The region’s economy has fallen behind national levels for almost a century, with this gap worsening over time,” it adds. “Interventions and investments to close this gap need to be a national priority.”
In the north-west, Greater Manchester’s Andy Burnham and Liverpool’s Steve Rotheram this week also renewed their calls for a line linking the economic corridor between Liverpool, Warrington, Cheshire and Manchester.
Rotheram and Burnham have framed its potential as a “northern arc”, a deliberate allusion to the Oxford-Cambridge Arc, arguing it could add £90bn in gross value added to the economy by 2040.
The two pitches, launched in the same week, hint at mayoral competition for government attention ahead of the spending review.
“Since the previous government abandoned its strategic rail plan as part of its decision to cancel the northern leg of HS2, there has been a lack of cohesive strategy for rail investment across the north,” says the Yorkshire plan.
“We recognise the case for investment between Liverpool and Manchester, but the case for rail investment to the east of the Pennines is equally strong to complete the east and west connectivity.”
