Labour's Angela Rayner to warn against widening north-south divide in coronavirus fall out

In a video recorded for the Durham Miners Gala, which is being held online this year due to coronavirus, Ms Rayner said the economic impact of coronavirus must not increase the north-south divide and said there had been a “human cost” of mass unemployment in northern communities under previous Conservative governments.

Ms Rayner will say: “The north-south divide is continuing to grow, and we cannot afford for the economic impact of coronavirus to increase this gap even more.

“The Tories talk a good game on this issue but their record of turning their backs on the north speaks for itself.”

She will add: “Our mining communities know about the human cost of mass unemployment. We know how it feels to be abandoned by a Tory government and for entire generations to be consigned to what the Thatcher government called ‘managed decline’”.

The Government has repeatedly committed to “levelling up” the north, a key part of the manifesto that won them the December General Election.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that despite the coronavirus crisis and the cost to the Treasury of recovery measures, his Government will still invest to improve the lot of those outside of London.