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GEORGE OSBORNE was accused of “pure showboating” yesterday over planned investment in northern railways as austerity and privatisation slashed jobs, services and safety levels in the region.
The Chancellor spoke in advance of the publication of the One North report on a £15 billion plan to “better connect northern cities.”
He also promised to make a “big commitment” in his autumn statement to boost economic activity in the north.
But northern towns and cities are among the worst-hit by Con-Dem austerity, unemployment, the bedroom tax, benefit cuts and other coalition policies.
“While we welcome any moves to invest in transport infrastructure in the north, it should be remembered that these plans are totally at odds with those outlined in the government’s current consultation on Northern Rail and Trans Pennine Express (train companies) which, far from recommending expansion, actually slash services to ribbons,” said rail union RMT’s acting general secretary Mick Cash.
“It is also pure showboating for George Osborne, whose austerity cuts are behind the axing of jobs and services on the railways, to claim he is backing modernisation and investment when he is, of course, the axeman in chief.”
Mr Cash bemoaned the record of the two decades since rail privatisation, which he said had proven the private sector could not be trusted to run transport as anything other than a “get rich quick” scheme.
“Any expansion of services in the North, like those being proposed by the local authorities today, must be run in the public sector as a public service free from the poison of greed and profiteering,” he said.
Labour shadow Treasury minister Shabana Mahmood added: “Mr Osborne will be judged on his actions, not his words. He is failing to back the Heseltine report or Labour’s plans to devolve billions of pounds of funding.
“Infrastructure output has fallen by over 12 per cent since 2010 and the Chancellor has refused to back our proposal for an independent infrastructure commission to end the dither and delay on long-term decisions.”
