HS3: cross-Pennine railway line will help rebalance economy, says PM

The prime minister has given the go-ahead for the development of a cross-Pennine railway line that he says should cost £6-7bn – the same mile-per-mile as HS2, the high-speed line planned to link London with Birmingham and key northern cities.

David Cameron said the UK’s London-centric economy would be rebalanced by the combination of HS2 and what he has called HS3, a fast east-west train link, initially between Manchester and Leeds.

Cameron and the chancellor, George Osborne, travelled to Leeds on Monday to welcome the latest report on HS2 by Sir David Higgins, which reaffirms that the high-speed line from London should have an eastern leg from Birmingham to Leeds via the east Midlands and east Yorkshire, and a western leg from Birmingham to Manchester via Crewe. Higgins also stressed the need for vastly improved rail links east-west across the north of England.

Some have accused Higgins of being a political pawn, used by Cameron and Osborne to shore up support in the north of England in the runup to the general election. “They’re only doing this because the election is next year,” said Lord Prescott, the former Labour deputy prime minister, who claimed the Tories had simply copied a report he commissioned 10 years ago on east-west connectivity.

Asked why the prime minister had suddenly declared himself passionate about high-speed rail in the north, Higgins said: “Is it a coincidence that an election is approaching? Probably not.”

But he said a trans-Pennine link was not a pie-in-the-sky idea. Most informed people now accepted Crossrail 2, a second cross-London line, would be built at a cost of at least £25bn, he said, despite naysayers initially saying it wouldn’t happen. “We launched that programme a few months ago within London and everyone said there was no interest and no budget, and yet it’s caught the public imagination. I’m convinced too that Crossrail 2 will happen because the public are getting behind it. Well, high-speed 3 will happen. Provided the public get behind it and the politicians maintain the faith and keep pushing it, it will occur.”

Despite his optimism, Higgins suggested HS3 was the wrong name for the mooted line because the trains would travel at speeds under 250km/h (155mph) – the generally accepted definition of high-speed rail. “It will be a 125mph railway line. You don’t need to go that fast between cities 40 miles apart,” he said. The service could be substantially developed before HS2 begins operation in 2027, he added.

The idea was cautiously welcomed by some leaders of northern cities, who say the money to pay for new transport infrastructure must not be offset by yet more cuts to town hall budgets.

“We need to know where the money is coming from,” said Keith Wakefield, leader of Leeds city council. “We’ve taken a cut of £470m in the West Yorkshire and York combined authority over the last four years. What we don’t want to see is this transport plan coming off our expenditure. We want to see new money and a rebalancing of public expenditure to the north.”

Joe Anderson, the Labour mayor of Liverpool, complained that by initially focusing on Leeds and Manchester, a “two north solution” was being developed, rather than one benefiting all of the north of England. “He said: “I am profoundly disappointed that despite a great deal of rhetoric about a northern powerhouse, this announcement offers no new connectivity or capacity to Liverpool. We are once again being bypassed by an investment that will fail to realise its supposed purpose.

“Far from a one north agenda the government and HS2 Ltd are putting forward a two north solution which is excluding many of our northern cities and communities from the promise of greater economic prosperity.”

Speaking in Leeds on Monday Cameron said: “We do have extraordinarily successful northern cities in our country but the real way of rebalancing the country is not just making sure there’s connectivity north-south but linking up those cities east-west so there can be a northern powerhouse that is a real counterbalance to London and the south-east.”

Osborne said the original HS2 proposal five years ago missed crucial east-west connection and said HS3 was integral to the success of HS2.

He told Leeds Civic Hall he was making “the biggest ever collective investment of any government in the north of England”.

Yet no money is on the table for the east-west link, with Cameron and Osborne simply saying they were asking Higgins to develop the HS3 plan, and report back in March.

Asked how much it would cost, Cameron said: “There will be a proper report in March which will put a cost on the scheme, but to give you an estimate, if HS3 were to cost mile-per-mile as HS3 we would be looking at an investment of between £6bn and £7bn. I believe it is affordable.”

The prime minister hailed “a real cross-party alliance” that he said had developed in town halls across the UK. He said: “I think it’s incredibly powerful the way the leaders in local government of our cities in the Midlands and north have come together and wanted to come to Downing Street and say how committed they are to this project. Now, we don’t all belong to the same political parties but I think we do share the same vision, the people running those cities and the people running this government and across Whitehall and Westminster. That’s why I am so pleased to be here today and give the green light to this great work.”

Some present were suspicious of Osborne and Cameron’s relatively recent enthusiasm for all things northern. Speaking before the report launch in Leeds, Prescott lambasted the government for stealing his idea for improving northern transport links.

He said that in 2004 he ordered the three northern regional development agencies (since scrapped by the coalition) to create what became known as The Northern Way, a plan for economic growth in the north driven by investment in transport.

“Unfortunately the Northern Way plan, its resources and the northern regional development agencies were scrapped in one of the first acts of chancellor Osborne in 2010. It’s taken four years but I’m glad the government has U-turned to launch its version of the Northern Way, Osborne’s northern powerhouse,” said Prescott, handing out photocopied extracts of the Northern Way. “We eagerly await the promised resources in the government’s upcoming expenditure statement.”