Heidi Alexander

I cannot believe what I have just heard, to be honest. I know that the hon. Gentleman is standing in for the shadow Transport Secretary, the right hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden), but I really hoped that he would have done a bit better than that. The hon. Gentleman talks about no budget being set out. We have set out £1.1 billion to be spent over the next four years, which is far more than his Government ever spent on Northern Powerhouse Rail in the 14 years in which they had an opportunity to make improvements to the rail network in the north of England. If that is the way the Conservatives approach basic maths when we are spending more than £1 billion, I can see why the public booted them out of office at the last election. We are working in collaboration with local mayors. We have agreed with them that where they see opportunity to boost economic growth beyond the core scope of the Northern Powerhouse Rail proposals, we will work with them to agree local contributions so that the full benefits of this investment can be realised. More generally, this is a classic case of the hon. Gentleman writing the questions without listening to the announcement. We are delivering Northern Powerhouse Rail in full. We have set out our plans in full, we are funding NPR in full, and we will deliver it. The hon. Gentleman mentions the previous Government and their aspirations. Let me remind the House of what that actually amounted to—the plan that got the location of Manchester wrong on a map, promised new tramlines that had already been built, and diverted funding away from the north to fix potholes in the south. That plan was not worth the paper it was written on, so we will take no lessons on this matter from the Conservatives. If the hon. Gentleman will not listen to me, maybe he will listen to the people who run our great city regions in the north. The Mayors of West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and North Yorkshire said that “we welcome the government’s once in a generation commitment to improving transport across the North”. The Mayor of the Liverpool City Region said: “After more than a decade of dither, delay and broken promises, this is the start of a new era, with a genuinely strategic approach and a government finally backing Northern Powerhouse Rail in full.” The Mayor of Greater Manchester said, “Finally, we have a government with an ambitious vision for the North” and a “firm commitment to Northern Powerhouse Rail”. Let me quote one more person: “NPR is a project I’ve long championed…so it is excellent to see the government backing it in full”. Those are not the words of a Labour mayor or a Labour Minister; they are the words of former Conservative Rail Minister Huw Merriman. Our plans are backed by the mayors, by business leaders, and by the Conservatives’ own former Rail Minister. That tells us everything we need to know about who is delivering for the north and who never did.