Andy McDonald: Broken promises on rail are betrayal of the North

AS Parliament broke for the recess last month and MPs left for their constituencies for the summer, the Government snuck out dozens of important announcements in a bid to bury bad news, including pulling the plug on plans to upgrade Yorkshire's transport network by electrifying the trans-Pennine and Midland Mainline railway routes.

The Tories have pledged the electrification of the trans-Pennine and Midland Mainline routes since 2012, fighting two General Elections on promises to upgrade two of Yorkshire’s most important rail lines. Just weeks after the 2015 election, the Conservatives “paused” the works by years.

And last month, in a move the Transport Secretary must have planned before the General Election, the plug was pulled on plans to fully electrify the trans-Pennine line between Leeds and Manchester and on the Midland Mainline north of Kettering to Sheffield and Nottingham.

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By making the announcement to journalists and through written statements rather than to Parliament, Chris Grayling dodged providing further details or answering questions from MPs. So it was with great interest that I read the Transport Secretary’s article on these pages.

Remarkably, the Transport Secretary told readers that their concern were “unfounded” and that the Government’s “commitment to northern transport stands as strong as ever” despite slamming the brakes on hundreds of millions of pounds worth of investment.

Having spent the last half a decade extolling the virtues of electrification, Grayling is now saying that binning the promised upgrades is good news for Yorkshire. The Transport Secretary claims you will be spared “disruptive” improvements and that electrification isn’t necessary as the same benefits will be achieved with bi-mode trains running on diesel.

The line that Yorkshire won’t lose out is nonsense and completely at odds with what his predecessors and Department for Transport have said for years: That electrification delivers “massive improvements to journey times, more seats and more reliable services”, that electric trains are “greener, they’re also cheaper and also they are lighter too, so what that means is that when they are on the track they don’t damage it so much, so maintenance costs go down too” as well as being “a particular benefit for air quality”. Quite simply, it’s dishonest to claim the benefits of electrification will be realised through bi-modal trains running on non-electrified track.

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Running on diesel, trains to and from Yorkshire will cost around 25 per cent more per mile in fuel, will emit around 30 per cent more CO2 and will cost around a third more than electric trains to maintain; they’re more expensive, heavier, more polluting, slower and less reliable.

Passengers will be denied the faster, greener, more reliable train journeys they were assured of, along with the economic benefits that improved rail services deliver. The Transport Secretary is taking people for fools if he expects jettisoning the plan to modernise the region’s rail links to been seen as anything other a betrayal of Yorkshire.

In a move that rubbed salt in the wounds, days later Grayling announced his backing of Crossrail 2, a proposed new rail line for London.

Research from IPPR North found that more than half of the UK’s total spending on transport networks is invested in London. The disparities of investment across the country are scandalous, with Yorkshire and the Humber getting £190 per head compared with £1,943 for those in the capital.

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Poor transport links in the North means that it currently takes longer to travel by train from Liverpool to Hull than from London to Paris, and by pulling the plug on upgrades in areas already undermined by chronic underinvestment and poor connectivity, the government is worsening regional inequality.

The Tories said electrification was “at the heart” of their plans to build a ‘Northern Powerhouse’, but they’re undermining the proposed Crossrail for the North – a coast-to-coast, east-west rail line in northern England, connecting Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle, Tees Valley and Hull – which will no longer be a fully electrified network.

A modern rail network linking the North can transform northern economies, helping to unlock £97bn of economic potential and deliver 850,000 new jobs by 2050, yet the Government is slashing promised improvements.

Investing in transport infrastructure is a key driver of economic growth and is necessary for the rebalancing of the economy, increasing productivity and tackling climate change, which is why Labour has pledged to upgrade the rail network throughout Britain, underpinned by a £10bn commitment for Crossrail for the North.

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What Yorkshire needs is improved connectivity as part of an integrated rail network fit for the 21st century, not under-investment and more broken promises. It needs a Labour government to deliver this.

Andy McDonald is the Shadow Transport Secretary. He is also the Labour MP for Middlesbrough.