CHRISTIAN WAKEFORD: North West is not a priority for Rishi Sunak

This week the Conservatives have made the choice to ignore the North and decide that "levelling up" is indeed a meaningless slogan.

Yesterday (Wednesday) is was confirmed that Rishi Sunak is scrapping the Northern leg of HS2 from Birmingham Curzon Street to Manchester, as the Conservatives have their party conference this week in…Manchester.

However, this is a worrying trend which seems to always be the case that up North, we are constantly neglected, infrastructure lagging and treated like second class citizens by London-centric politicians.

With HS2 alone, the government has scrapped the Eastern leg which would have linked Birmingham and Leeds as well as confirming Bradford would no longer get its much-promised interchange.

What should be pretty mundane policy, linking your two largest cities with a train line, has been a shambles from the government.

I agree with mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham. This is being mooted without leaders in the North, such as Andy, Tracy Brabin or even the Conservatives’ own Andy Street even being consulted.

This also means we are going to be left with our Victorian infrastructure for the rest of the century which causes chaos on our railways every single day.

Funnily enough it was two years ago during my last Conservative conference I was saying very similar things! Whether it was called "levelling up" or "building back better", spending money on the North was about investment.

Bury South MP Christian Wakeford (Image: Christian Wakeford)

Call it "levelling up", if you want, it's just basic economic development. If all of a sudden, you're somewhere on that route and you can travel into a city or even just further down the line quickly and cheaply that opens up so many so many opportunities in terms of jobs health education.

Levelling up on paper sounds great, allowing areas and regions of the UK that have been forgotten and left behind, following the collapse of some industries, to catch-up.

Putting investment into these areas without an algorithm that means yet more money going into London is an idea that resonates strongly in towns and cities from Manchester to Cornwall.

For my part, levelling up isn’t a shiny new building it’s education, skills, and training. It’s social mobility and improving opportunities and life chances for all.

Cancelling the Northern leg of HS2 is not levelling up nor improving opportunities for people in Bury, Greater Manchester or the North West.

Tough decisions will always arise whoever is in government, but you can tell a lot by someone’s priorities and for the self-proclaimed “most Northern PM ever”.

The North West is not a priority for Rishi Sunak or the Conservatives and its only Labour that will bring our communities together through a skills based approach and investing in our infrastructure so no town feels "left behind".