Speaking on the publication of the Government’s Integrated Rail Plan which scraps plans for a Northern Powerhouse Rail line from Manchester to Leeds through Bradford City Centre, Imran Hussain, MP for Bradford East said:

“After the Prime Minister and the Government repeatedly promised to level up left-behind communities and deliver Northern Powerhouse Rail in full, and after the Transport Minister stated in June that the Government are ‘absolutely committed to the Northern Powerhouse Rail programme’, there are simply no publishable words that can describe my anger towards their Northern Powerhouse Betrayal this morning.

“Instead of a commitment to delivering improvements for Bradford that would deliver transformative change for our economy and the people who live and work here, all that we are left with are three conclusions: that their levelling up slogan is nothing more than a sham; that not one word of this Prime Minister can be trusted; and that the Government don’t give a damn about people in Bradford or across the North.

“I’m also deeply angered by the Government’s belief that they can buy off people in Bradford with a consolation prize of a mass transit system from Leeds in exchange for scrapping Northern Powerhouse Rail. This isn’t a consolation, it’s a deliberate two-fingers to Bradford. We’re the country’s 7th largest city, not a suburb of Leeds, and we deserve to be treated as such with proper rail links to Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham and London.”