Like many others, I call for fair funding and regional autonomy for Yorkshire. Our region deserves no less and our people, particularly the young, deserve the same opportunities in life as those elsewhere in the UK. Transport is a prime example of where Yorkshire has been left behind.
The Scottish government has announced that peak fares will be abolished on ScotRail. This is good news for Scotland because everyday travel is now much cheaper and more flexible. It shows what can be achieved when a region has control over its own rail services.
In Yorkshire, we can only look on. We are at the mercy of Westminster’s control, and they obviously have other priorities closer to home.
London and the south: More trains, more carriages, more investment
Rail passengers in London and the south east already benefit from levels of service Yorkshire can only dream of. In the capital, many routes see six to twelve trains per hour, often running with ten to twelve carriages. A cancelled train in London is inconvenient, but the next one arrives within minutes and usually has enough capacity to absorb the extra passengers.
In Yorkshire, the picture is very different. Leeds to Manchester, which is the busiest TransPennine route, manages just four trains per hour. Leeds to Sheffield usually has two, and Leeds to Hull often only one. Many services have only two or three carriages. When one of these trains is cancelled, passengers can face waits of 30–60 minutes. Even worse, when the next service does finally arrive, it is already overcrowded.
The network itself is also less resilient. London has a dense mesh of lines and diversionary routes. Unfortunately, Yorkshire’s network is patchier, with bottlenecks and single-track stretches. One disruption here can cause chaos for hours.
The differences don’t stop at frequency and train length. London has a better record of trains running on time than here in Yorkshire. London and the south east consistently outperform us in this regard, leaving Yorkshire passengers with some of the worst services in the country.
Scotland shows a different way
It doesn’t have to be like this. Since ScotRail was taken into public ownership, accountability and reliability have improved. Now, the Scottish government has gone even further by scrapping peak fares altogether.
With Scotland in charge, Scottish passengers come first. By removing the penalty for peak-time travel, Scotland is encouraging people to ditch their cars and use trains. This makes commuting affordable, whilst also boosting the Scottish economy.
And why can they do this? Because they have the powers. Scotland runs its own rail.
The investment divide
London and the south have enjoyed almost three times the transport investment per person compared with Yorkshire. London and the south receive £1,183 per person per year, while Yorkshire and the Humber only receive £441. Yorkshire has lost out on tens of billions in rail and transport funding. Money that could have been invested in electrification, more carriages, and more frequent services. Unfortunately for the Yorkshire commuter, the money has been poured into the south. (Source: IPPR North analysis, The Guardian, June 2025)
What Yorkshire could do – if only we had control
Beyond being starved of investment, the problem for Yorkshire is that we lack the powers to make real changes ourselves. Encouragingly, three of our mayors have joined forces through the White Rose group, recognising that by working together they may achieve more for the region. Yet, the Hull and East Yorkshire mayor, Luke Campbell, has so far not joined the group. This decision weakens Yorkshire’s collective voice and ultimately limits his own influence too.
However, without real power and funding I am not hopeful. We remain dependent on the Department for Transport which consistently treats London and the south better than Yorkshire. Every extra carriage and every new line in the south have come at our cost.
We also know it doesn’t have to be like this, because Scotland is showing us another way.
The case for change
Yorkshire deserves the same powers to shape its own future. If we ran our own rail, we could make the bold choices Scotland has just made. We could put passengers first. We could finally begin to close the gap with London and the south.
The question for every Yorkshire passenger is simple: why should we settle for less?
