Jeremy Corbyn is travelling the proposed route of ‘Crossrail for the North’ on Monday (3 September) to highlight the Labour party’s pledge to build the cross-country high-speed rail link.
The party is holding a national rail campaign day and has highlighted statistics that it said show a deterioration in services since it left office.
Mr Corbyn with Liverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotheram (right)
It said it Mr Corbyn will track the proposed route of Crossrail for the North from Liverpool Lime Street via Manchester and Leeds to Hull, to which it has committed ‘at least £10bn’.
It added that the rail upgrade, which it also referred to as HS3 would help deliver 850,000 new jobs by 2050 and unlock £97bm of economic potential in the region.
Mr Corbyn said: ‘The rail chaos unleashed by the Tories on the North of England shows their utter disregard for people living in the towns and cities in the North.
‘For decades northern communities have received only a fraction of the transport investment that is spent in London and the South East. Labour will put this right by building Crossrail for the North, connecting the great cities of the north of England to unlock huge untapped potential.
‘People’s lives are being badly affected by this chaos and the government needs to recognise that rail privatisation has failed. Labour will end this rip-off and bring our railways into public ownership so they are run in the interests of passengers, not private profit.’
Labour said its analysis shows that the number of passenger trains across the country arriving on time has fallen from 91.5% when Labour left office in 2010 to 87.8% in 2017/18, while the number of trains cancelled or significantly late rose from 2.6% in 2010 to 3.9%.
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