Dame Diana Johnson is calling on Labour to commit to regenerating towns and cities with “great untapped potential” to unlock economic growth, during a speech at the party’s conference in Liverpool.

The Hull North MP also said “sustained” investment will be needed to back major redevelopments and large infrastructure projects.

She told the audience high-speed railways are urgently needed in the North and Labour will need to “work with private investors to salvage what we can from HS2” or upgrade the East Coast Mainline if it wins the next General Election.

During her speech, she also claimed the hugely successful redevelopment of London Docklands could be replicated in the Humber.

Margaret Thatcher's government seized direct control of the area in 1981, declared it an enterprise zone and offered generous tax breaks to attract investment. That kickstarted a major redevelopment which created one of the world's major financial hubs – Canary Wharf.

“Transformative Canary Wharf-scale public and private investment must come to places like the Humber Estuary,” said Dame Diana.

“Why the urgency? Because, as we’ve seen in East London since the early 1980s, real and lasting regeneration takes decades – not one or two Parliaments.

“Upgrading infrastructure and getting well-paid jobs and spending power into a local economy creates a virtuous circle for further investment in housing, retail, leisure and services. But it doesn’t happen overnight.”

She also said Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s recent decision to scrap the Northern leg of HS2, without consulting political leaders in the region, shows he has little interest in levelling up in the North of England or devolution.

“As a Hull MP, it’s clear to me that under these ‘New Conservatives’ there will be no London Docklands in Humber Docklands,” she added.

“Just small pots of money, not even compensating for post-2010 cuts, and opportunistic fairy tale promises made – then cancelled – in a death spiral of mismanaged decline.

“To ‘get Britain’s future back’, it means going for growth.

"And doing it for Britain must mean ‘doing it for Yorkshire’.”

The Government’s Levelling Up Fund, which has provided £3.8bn to support 216 projects so far, has been heavily criticised in recent months.

Councils which have lost hundreds of millions of pounds of funding under austerity claim they are now having to compete against each other for relatively small amounts of money.

The Government insists that the competition “drives innovation”.

The Prime Minister has also faced criticism after he scaled back HS2, but said that £36bn of the money saved will be invested in hundreds of other transport project across the country.

However, his claims are disputed and some of the projects have already been built.

Labour MP says ‘Canary Wharf-scale’ investment is needed to transform the North