News that today’s Cabinet is being held in God’s Own county has been met with some incredulity given that the Cabinet seems to have given the North no more than a passing glance for the last 14 years.
Forgotten regions of the North
“Rishi Sunak vowed [this weekend] to revitalise Britain’s forgotten regions by pumping almost £5bn into improving links” claimed the Sunday Express front page. At least they’ve had the temerity to admit the North has been forgotton for the last 14 years.
Forgotten is something that South Yorkshire’s mayor, Oliver Coppard, knows only too well. According to his website:
“Since October 2022, South Yorkshire has seen a 15% network loss based on [bus] trips. Bus services in the last 10 years have fallen from 588 services to 338 services. That equates to 9.3 million miles of the region’s bus services lost.”
Responding to claims from Sunak in a BBC Look North programme last September, Mayor Coppard pointed out that, “South Yorkshire had received nothing from the £434 million bid submitted as part of the Bus Service Improvement Plan fund and nothing from the £37 million levelling up fund bid for Demand Responsive Transport solutions”.
Reallocating promised HS2 funds
Yesterday Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse, took to the airwaves to suggest that Sunak’s promise of reallocating money from the canceled HS2 project is not what was promised to the North 10 years ago.
In 2015 the government launched its transport plans for the North claiming:
“Our shared aim is to transform Northern growth, rebalance the country’s economy and establish the North as a global powerhouse …
“The government’s clear commitment to the full HS2 ‘Y’ network alongside record levels of other transport investment will transform journeys between London, the Midlands, Scotland and the North’s key growth areas …
“Our aim is for economic growth in the North to be at least as high as the rest of the country, to complement and act as a balance to the economic weight of London.”
Just five years later in 2019 the ‘clear commitment’ didn’t seem to be so clear. Respected thinktank IPPR North noted that real-terms “public sector employment fell by 37,000, or 2.8 per cent, compared to 1.2 per cent in London [and] transport spending rose by more than twice as much per person in London (£330 per person) as in the North (£149 per person)”.
Levelling down funding for the North
Yes, we have more mayors. But in many other respects the government has actually held back the North. Between 2009/10 and 2017/18 the North has seen a £3.6bn cut in public spending, while the South East and the South West together saw a £4.7bn rise.
As if to underline just how little this government is interested in the North on 4 October 2023 Prime Minister Sunak announced that the HS2 second leg was going to be cancelled citing costs and changes to transport needs post Covid.
Louise Haigh, shadow transport secretary, was reported by the Guardian as saying “Is there anything more emblematic of 13 years of dismal failure by this broken government than their flagship levelling up project that fails to even reach the north?”
According to Yorkshire Live the Prime Minister has promised to reinvest “every single penny” of £36bn previously earmarked for the [HS2] scheme into hundreds of new transport projects.
Yorkshire folk may be forgiven for rolling their eyes at this bold claim. For a start, Sunak may have thought that having five priorities by which we can hold him to account was a cracking good idea at the beginning of 2023. Some 14 months later, with real progress on only on goal (halving inflation), it makes him look weak.
Broken promises from a Tory government
This on top of the fact that according to the Independent the previous Tory prime minister, Boris Johnson, had lied to parliament on an unprecedented scale. Johnson’s pledge of “40 new hospitals” was as arbitrary as his pledge of “50 000 new NHS nurses” said consultant David Oliver in the BMJ.
But what was really galling was the news just before Christmas that £235mn of London pothole money was being made possible due to the scrapping of HS2. Really?
This is apparently a general election year. Maybe the government will finally cough up. But how cynical and how galling when what is likely to be announced today was supposed to happen years ago. How many jobs lost due to inaction?
On Sunday the government put out a statement saying:
“Tomorrow marks a historic moment for the North and Midlands. We are investing billions directly across the region through the first of its kind Local Transport Fund – which fully empowers local people to invest in the transport priorities that matter most to them and their communities”.
Too late for most people. We see you and your electioneering. If you really cared about us you would have been doing more years ago. I guess the polling in the red wall seats has concentrated the minds on some sort of action.
So, to members of the Cabinet, good luck in finding the North. Try to use public transport to get here. Sorry you can’t use Doncaster airport but that’s another story. And good luck if you just happen to bump into an unsuspecting member of the public. Excuse us if we’re a bit brusk. But we’ve had 14 years and nothing – and to be quite honest, were not expecting anything now.
Prove us wrong.
