Rail services are suffering from a widening North-South gap, angry Labour MPs have claimed.
They are furious that while London and the South East has benefited from major projects such as Crossrail and Thameslink, other areas have missed out.
Labour MP Graham Stringer said that the day before the Government gave the green light to the £16 billion Crossrail project, transport minister Rosie Winterton travelled to Manchester. At Piccadilly station she announced a study of how to increase rail capacity for the city and across the North.
She claimed the ‘Manchester Hub’ would help close the £30 billion productivity gap between the North and the average for England.
But North-based members of the Commons Transport Select Committee pointed to the contrast between giving the go-ahead to Crossrail and just announcing a feasibility study for the Manchester area.
Mr Stringer, MP for Manchester Blackley, pointed to figures in the Department for Transport annual report that he said proved the North-South gap was real, and growing.
A table buried deep in the report outlines how much the Department spent on rail in 2005-06, the latest year available. While £1.2 billion was lavished on the South East and £782 million on London, just £224 million was spent in the North East, £280 million in Scotland and £168 million in Wales.
There was a similar picture for overall transport expenditure, with the gap set to widen in future years as spending on new projects such as Crossrail accelerates.
The Department plans to spend £135 per head in 2007-08, but the regional figures are £198 for the South East, £106 in the eastern region, £40 in Scotland and just £13 in Northern Ireland.
Mr Stringer said Manchester Piccadilly needed platforms 15 and 16, and asked if it was fair it only got a feasibility study while the South gained from Thameslink, Crossrail and London Underground improvements.
He said the figures showed high levels of public expenditure in the capital city, which was unusual compared to other European countries and unusual in other spending areas such as health.
“Why is the gap growing so rapidly against the regions?” he asked
Ms Kelly, who as a Bolton MP is herself based in the North, replied: “I would argue that the regions have done quite well out of the White Paper.”
There had been investment for Birmingham New Street and for schemes to reduce overcrowding in cities such as Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield.
And she said one reason for the disparity was the rocketing land prices in London, which made it “much more expensive” to carry out projects there.
But Mr Stringer said: “I find that breathtaking... It really is saying black is white.”
He insisted that the regions were “not doing well”, with the funding gap with London “increasing on a per capita basis”.
Ms Kelly told him the evidence for the Northern Hub had not been produced. But he replied: “The evidence of what is wrong with the Northern rail system has been presented to your department over 30 or 40 years.”
He also said the Department for Transport had been “part of the problem” when new tram and light rail schemes were proposed, and had hindered them in places such as Liverpool, Leeds and Southampton.
Carlisle Labour MP Eric Martlew weighed in, asking why the department was “so clearly against a high-speed link to the North”.
Ms Kelly said the Eddington Report had said Britain had good connectivity between major cities, and the big challenge was to improve capacity and reliability. That was why they were tackling pinch points, adding carriages and lengthening platforms.
She said the high-speed option had not been ruled out, but it was not the best use of the £30 billion she claimed a link from London to Glasgow would cost.
After the hearing Mr Stringer told Railnews he had not been impressed by the transport secretary’s performance.
“I thought her line of argument was becoming incoherent – the fact is we are getting very little.” And he said Ms Kelly would have to return to the Committee for another grilling.
He warned: “This debate will not go away, both on the funding of trams and the funding over what is the equivalent of Thameslink in the North.”