North missed £140bn of transport investment during last government
The North of England would have received an extra £140 billion in transport investment under the previous government if funding levels had been the same as in London, research has claimed.
Independent analysis by think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) looked at Treasury figures between 2009/10 and 2022/23, during which time the Conservatives were in power.
It reached the figure, which it said was enough to build seven Elizabeth Lines, by considering the amount of spending per person across the different English regions over that period.
While England as a whole saw £592 spent per person each year, London received double that amount with £1,183 spent per person, the IPPR said.
The entire North region saw £486 spent per person, with the North East and North West seeing £430 and £540 spent per person respectively.
This amounted to £140 billion of missed investment for the North, more than the entire £83 billion estimate of capital spending on transport in the region since 1999/2000, according to the analysis.
The region with the lowest amount of investment over the period was the East Midlands with just £355 spent per person.
Among the most divisive transport investment projects for the previous government was the HS2 rail project, which was axed north of Birmingham in October 2023.
Then-prime minister Rishi Sunak pledged to 'reinvest every single penny, £36 billion, in hundreds of new transport projects in the North and the Midlands', including improvements to road, rail and bus schemes.
Earlier this week, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced a £15.6 billion package for mayoral authorities to use on public transport projects across the North and Midlands ahead of the spending review.
It is expected to include funding to extend the metros in Tyne and Wear, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands, along with a renewed tram network in South Yorkshire and a new mass transit system in West Yorkshire.
Marcus Johns, senior research fellow at IPPR North, said: 'Today's figures are concrete proof that promises made to the North over the last decade were hollow. It was a decade of deceit.
'We are 124 years on from the end of Queen Victoria's reign, yet the North is still running on infrastructure built during her rein – while our transport chasm widens.
'This isn't London bashing – Londoners absolutely deserve investment. But £1,182 per person for London and £486 for northerners? The numbers don't lie – this isn't right.
'This Government have begun to restore fairness with their big bet on transport cash for city leaders.
'They should continue on this journey to close this investment gap in the upcoming spending review and decades ahead.'
Former Treasury minister Lord Jim O'Neill said: 'Good governance requires the guts to take a long-term approach, not just quick fixes. So the Chancellor is right in her focus on the UK's long-standing supply-side weaknesses – namely our woeful productivity and weak private and public investment.
'Backing major infrastructure is the right call, and this spending review is the right time for the Chancellor to place a big bet on northern growth and begin to close this investment chasm.
'But it's going to take more than commitments alone – she'll need to set out a transparent framework for delivery.'
Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, said: 'For too long, the North of England has been treated as a poor relation to the South when it comes to government spending on transport infrastructure, and this analysis makes stark reading – exposing the vast scale of underfunding over many years.
'The Chancellor's announcement of £2.5 billion funding for transport in Greater Manchester will be a game-changer for our city-region, enabling us to expand the Bee Network, and deliver the UK's first, zero emission, integrated, public transport system by 2030.
'We have also made the case for a new Liverpool-Manchester railway, which would further rebalance infrastructure investment, and could boost the UK economy by £90 billion by 2040.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
ANDREW NEIL: Starmer's claim to be 'investing in Britain's renewal' is delusional drivel in a class of its own - even for a Government that's a stranger to the truth
Our first job was to stabilise the economy and public finances,' Keir Starmer tweeted yesterday morning, a few hours before Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered Labour's spending plans for the rest of the decade. 'Now, we move into a new chapter . . . we're investing in Britain's renewal.'
BBC News
2 hours ago
- BBC News
Chris Mason: Spending Review a gamble on patience in an era of impatience
The hours, days, weeks and even months after a Spending Review can feel like peeling away the layers of an there is the speech from the chancellor in the Commons: the political rhetoric and the numbers often designed to sound big but which are often there are accompanying documents - in this instance in particular a blue-covered, 128-page tome crammed with words, numbers and work of months, much of it conducted privately with intermittent blasts of authorised and unauthorised briefing, talking up and grumbling, then suddenly bursts out in public demanding digestion. But that takes time. And as the detail is pored over, elements that were not put up in lights by the chancellor become clearer.A good example is the expectation many, many people in England and Wales will be paying higher council tax to help fund the police - something not set out explicitly by Rachel Reeves at the dispatch details on what is planned are expected in the coming weeks - with the government's infrastructure plans due to be set out other elements could take much longer to play out: for example, an obscure budget in a particular department that was culled, only for an outcry in six months time. Or, conversely, a budget that hasn't been culled but is later determined to be a waste of money. Seven ways the Spending Review affects youWinners and losers: Who got what in the review?What has the chancellor has announced? The key pointsWatch: Where the money is being spent The government is seeking to badge this moment as a turning prime minister told the Cabinet and has now written in the Guardian that "this week we bettered a new stage in the mission for national renewal. Last autumn we fixed the foundations. Today we showed Britain we will rebuild."Let's curiosity here is the standard critique of political leaders is turned on its head with much of this Spending often the grumble is one of short-termism, the quick win, the lack of strategic long term yet the gamble the government has taken is a willingness for patience in an era of term, so called capital spending, can - the argument goes - transform the public realm and in so doing transform economic it doesn't happen quickly and day-to-day spending is limited, even cut in this at a time of volatile politics and a restlessness among an electorate, many of whom feel squeezed and have done for years and Chancellor Rachel Reeves acknowledged to me there was an impatience for change - the very thing Labour promised - and pointed to an expansion of entitlement to free school meals and breakfast clubs in England, for big bet though remains on economic growth - finding it and sustaining lack of it is the shackle on so much within government and beyond: the national mood, taxes, you name yes the prospect of more tax rises in the autumn will hang in the air all the big test of this Spending Review is the contribution it can make to delivering growth - and when.
Spectator
2 hours ago
- Spectator
Letters: How ‘Nick' could save the Tories
Dying wish Sir: As a 99-year-old with, presently, no intention of requesting assistance to die, I am struck by the articles of Dan Hitchens and Tom Tugendhat ('Bitter end' and 'Killing me softly', 7 June), which base their strong opposition on the opinions of everyone other than the person supposed to be requesting such assistance. He or she, poor soul, is expected to just lie there and listen to whether they are to be allowed to have any opinion at all on the matter. It's my life they are writing about. At present I have the ability to end it whenever I might wish. What Messers Hitchens and Tugendhat are arguing is that, if I change my mind, no one is to be allowed to help me at a moment of my choosing. That's wrong. Alan Hall Westerham, Kent Life lessons Sir: In response to Tom Tugendhat, having seen a friend suffering with severe agitation because of uncontrolled pain, my concern is that there is a strong disincentive for medical practitioners to provide adequate pain control, as adequate doses can exceed the upper limit of the 'normal' recommended range, leaving the doctor liable to litigation. My proposal is to introduce a form of advance instruction from patients: Pain-relief Over Prolongation Of Life (POPOL). Similar to the Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) for life-threatening medical emergency advance instructions at the front of the medical record, this would make it clear that the patient and relatives stipulate giving enough analgesia to control pain, despite the likelihood of it shortening life. It would have similar status to the DNR. This could be relatively easily adopted and would provide a much less controversial way than 'assisted dying' of achieving what many people want – a pain-free death. Having advanced cancer myself, I can strongly empathise with a wish for this path to be followed, which indeed it often was when I first qualified 45 years ago. Dr Ros Furlong MBBS FRCPsych scientific adviser to SANE London N6 Saving Nick Sir: Your recent leading article rightly identifies Nick, the archetypal 30-year-old, as at the thin end of the wedge (31 May). Traditionally the Conservatives stood for him, empowering Nick to acquire capital, a home and a family. Shifting to side with those who already have something, and against those striving to acquire it, is what made the party lose its compass. I founded the group Next Gen Tories (NGT) to put Nick back on the radar. Tackling Nick's challenges is the key to reversing both the UK's economic decline and the party's. We must return to the popular capitalist vision which has been a hallmark of every other postwar Conservative government. If Nick wants to save himself and arrest the country's decline, he should join the Conservatives to force this change of pace. James Cowling London SE10 Brought to book Sir: Having taught A-level English literature for nearly 30 years, I can't agree with Philip Womack's assertion ('Literal disaster', 31 May) that some students' difficulty in interpreting older texts is a sign that 'the foundations of western culture are teetering into collapse'. Part of the joy of teaching literature is to guide students sensitively through the social and historical contexts of a text and build a bank of cultural capital for their future reading. I still blush when I recall my inability to 'elicit a scintilla of sense' from 'The Convergence of the Twain', Hardy's poem about the sinking of the Titanic. 'How could it be an august night,' I asked my teacher, 'when the ship sank in April?' Andy Simpson Sandbach, Cheshire Sir: Christian Wolmar's advice on Chinese banquets (Notes on, 31 May) is sound but incomplete. While it is important to pace yourself and to avoid the host, who is duty bound to press every dish upon you, there are other factors to remember. A refusal always offends, as does slow, reluctant consumption. My friend, a notoriously picky eater, recognised he must take part in the banquet for the good of his business, and managed to conceal a shudder as he accepted the proffered entire chicken foot. He coped by eating it quickly. His speed was taken as enthusiasm and his delighted host immediately offered him another. Joanne Aston Norby, Thirsk Period pains Sir: Madeline Grant is quite right to decry the distortion of history in recent shows ('The sad decline of period dramas', 7 June). The worst offender in this respect, of course, is one William Shakespeare (1564–1616). How much does his Richard III owe to the historical king? Not a lot, but he owes a mountain to Holinshed or, worse, to Thomas More. So much for character but, as for gender, don't get me started. His Joan of Arc was played by a boy, as was his Ophelia. For convenience naturally, and misrepresentation if you will. In the eyes of our national Bard, so it would appear, history is not in the past. It is in the present, and so are we. Robert Fraser Emeritus Professor, English and Creative Writing, Open University Tapioca heaven Sir: Olivia Potts rightly celebrates tapioca (The Vintage Chef, 31 May) but fails to mention the sublime payasam served in Tamil Nadu. This milky sweet cardamom-scented tapioca pudding has only one drawback: it is very difficult to eat with your fingers. But delicious nevertheless. Caroline Walker Beaminster, Dorset Write to us letters@
