What the HS2 U-turn means for the levelling-up agenda

The eastern leg of

The eastern leg of the HS2 rail link from the West Midlands to
Leeds will be axed, the government has confirmed. 

Northern MPs and businesses had been “steeling themselves for
disappointment” ahead of publication of the Integrated Rail Plan
(IRP), said The Mirror^[1], as changes to the
government’s plans for high-speed rail links in the region had long
expected. 

The ‘Northern Powerhouse’ rail route, a proposed new line from
Leeds to Manchester via Bradford, has also been scrapped. 

It will instead now consist of a new high-speed line between
Manchester and Huddersfield with “upgrades” that include full
electrification of the rest of the existing line, reported
The Times^[2]. 

The cuts are likely to raise questions about the government’s
‘levelling-up’^[3]
agenda, the loosely defined ambition to reduce regional
inequalities in the UK. There will also be accusations of breaking
election promises – the 2019 Conservative
manifesto^[4] committed to
“building Northern Powerhouse Rail between Leeds and
Manchester”. 

Speaking to the BBC^[5]
this morning, Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab denied the
government was breaking promises to “level up” the country by
scrapping key components of proposed HS2 plans. He called the new
plan “good for the whole country”, adding: “We are entirely
delivering on the aspiration and ambition of the levelling up
agenda.”

And ahead of the proposed cuts to the government’s HS2 plans,
there were already worries that existing funding commitments would
not be enough to “deliver levelling up”, according to a body that
advises the government on infrastructure, reported The Yorkshire
Post^[6]. 

In a new report, the National Infrastructure Commission said
there was “currently no pipeline of urban transport projects at the
scale likely to be required in coming decades to address the
impacts of congestion on growth and productivity in the busiest
cities with the most growth potential”. “Current commitments may
not be sufficient to deliver levelling up,” it said, adding that
“tens of billions” more investment will be needed. 

What does it mean for levelling
up?

Northern leaders have reacted angrily to the news. James Lewis,
leader of Leeds City Council, said the decision reinforced “the old
north-south divide”. 

“We believe that anything less than a commitment to the eastern
leg of HS2 as part of an integrated network with Northern
Powerhouse Rail in full would undermine any pledge to ‘level up’
our regions – at a time when we need it most,” he told the
BBC^[7].

And in an open letter to the prime minister, Mayor of West
Yorkshire Tracy Brabin urged Johnson to “keep his promises” on HS2
and said the new plans were “limiting your levelling up
ambitions”. 

A leading article in The Times^[8] earlier this week,
before publication of the IRP, said: “It was only last year
that Boris Johnson declared, without equivocation, that HS2,
Britain’s high-speed railway from London to Birmingham and beyond,
would be built ‘in full’.”

Scrapping the eastern leg to Leeds is “a blow to the entire
rationale of HS2”, said the paper. “What is left of the vaunted
levelling-up programme if the main promise of better transport
links is abandoned?” it added. 

Indeed, these “long-promised rail upgrades weren’t supposed to
be some nice-to-have icing-on-the-cake of the government’s overall
levelling up plans,” said Nick Golding in the Local Government
Chronicle^[9], but “the underlying
bedrock”.  

They have been a “fundamental pillar” of Boris Johnson’s “offer
to left-behind regions”, with the prime minister assuring voters as
recently as June on a campaign visit for the Batley and Spen
by-election that the plans for HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail
would go ahead.

It seems that the prime minister’s word “amounts to nothing”,
said Golding. 

Scrapping the eastern leg of HS2 will have certainly “angered
northern political leaders”, said Tamara Cohen for Sky News^[10].  But what will
cause Johnson “more trouble” with his own red-wall Tory MPs is the
downgrade of Northern Powerhouse Rail. 

“Conservative MPs in Yorkshire are braced to brand it an
economic missed opportunity, which will have consequences for
generations,” said Cohen. 

For many, this was “a test of how much money he and the Treasury
are prepared to commit to ‘levelling up’”.

“Money is obviously a major factor” in reducing HS2 plans, said
Politico^[11], which
reported “briefings flying around all week that Chancellor
Rishi Sunak wanted to reduce costs”. 

According to research by the Northern Powerhouse Partnership,
the government could save  £14bn by scrapping the eastern leg
of HS2 to Leeds and by downgrading its plans for Northern
Powerhouse Rail, said The Times^[12].