Labour focused on improving transport connectivity across the North instead of 'HS2-light'

The Wigan MP was speaking after a report in the Times suggested that Transport Secretary Louise Haigh was considering a cheaper alternative to replace the Northern leg of HS2 from Birmingham to Manchester.

Former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak famously scrapped the project, which was designed to improve rail capacity as well as speed, in the North West city last year.

Greater Manchester and West Midland mayors Andy Burnham and Richard Parker recently announced plans to replace the leg with a privately funded high-speed rail line, something the Times reports that the government is considering helping fund.

No decisions will be made until after the Spending Review in the Spring, however a source told the paper that there was “little option” but to push ahead with the plan due to capacity issues when HS2 starts running on the West Coast mainline.

Mr Sunak’s decision has meant that when HS2 trains move onto the existing rail line after Birmingham, capacity will actually be reduced as they have smaller passenger numbers than the current services.

Ms Nandy said: “I think the difficulty that the Transport Secretary and the Chancellor have is that the last government seriously overcommitted to projects that they had no idea how they were going to fund from the public finances, and so it’s meant some very tough decisions.”

But she explained: “I would say that the biggest, pressing, priority in the north of England is to improve east-west connectivity.

“One of the reasons that people suffer absolute misery on the railways in the north is because everything gets snarled up around Manchester because the stations are very old, the platforms aren’t long enough, we simply don’t have the capacity and it causes absolute chaos from east to west.”

Ms Nandy added: “As a constituency MP, and also as a member of the Government, we would want to see far more investment in transport in the north of England, and far more ability for mayors and councils to be able to determine how that investment is spent.”

Northern Powerhouse Rail, the planned high-speed line from Liverpool to Leeds, Hull and Sheffield, with a new station in Bradford, was put on hold after Mr Sunak’s HS2 decision.

Ms Haigh told this paper that she was conducting an infrastructure review and a decision on NPR would be made next year.

Industry figures believe it is crucial to improving growth across Yorkshire and the rest of the North.