Rachel Reeves insists 'this is different' after announcing decade-old plans for Greater Manchester

Rachel Reeves has insisted there's a 'difference' with her announcement about decade-old plans for rail upgrades in the North.

The Chancellor visited Greater Manchester today (November 7) alongside the transport secretary to talk about the investment into the Transpennine Route Upgrade (TRU) announced in the budget. The upgrade programme, which promises faster and more reliable services from Manchester to Leeds, has been delayed by more than a decade.

Work started a few years ago with the electrification of the Manchester to Stalybridge section, due to be complete by the end of the year. In the Budget, Ms Reeves also announced funding to electrify the Bolton to Wigan line, upgrades at Manchester Victoria and £250m for the long awaited upgrade to the A57 link road to Sheffield.

READ MORE: Budget 2024: Everything announced for Greater Manchester and what it means for us

Speaking to the Manchester Evening News at Stalybridge station, Ms Reeves said that, although the TRU project has been announced many times before, there is now money set aside in the budget to pay for it to continue. She said: "The difference between what we announced last week in the budget and what's happened over the last decade or so is that finally, we've put a line in the budget to provide the money for the Transpennine Route Upgrade.

"That is what makes us different from the previous government who made plenty of announcements, but you look at all of those budgets, all of those mini-budgets, all of those fiscal events and never do they put the money aside. We put £11bn aside for this as part of the £100bn extra for capital spending over the course of the next five years."

The upgrade was previously promised by the last Conservative government, which pledged £3.9bn to the project last December after the planned HS2 route between Birmingham and Manchester was axed. The Department for Transport said the TRU upgrade will slash journey times between Manchester and Leeds from 50 to 42 minutes, with up to six fast services every hour, while services from Manchester to York will also be cut by 10 minutes.

However, plans to build new lines connecting Manchester with Birmingham and Liverpool are still in doubt. It comes as Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham lobbies for a new line to replace the Northern leg of HS2 as well as a new line to Liverpool promised as part of Northern Powerhouse Rail - a new east-to-west railway across the region.

Transport secretary Louise Haigh told the M.E.N. that she is speaking to Mr Burnham and his West Midlands counterpart about their plans for the private sector to fund an alternative to HS2 that is cheaper to build. But she said the government's top priority is to improve links across the region from east to west, over north to south.

Speaking about the latest investment into the TRU scheme, she said: "This is an incredible improvement in connectivity across east-west which is the priority and it's the priority we made very clear in our manifesto."

Asked if this is a priority over north-to-south links, the Chancellor nodded, saying: "If there's a priority then…"

Mr Burnham, who joined the Chancellor and Transport Secretary on their visit to Greater Manchester, told the M.E.N. that the North should not have to choose, but he agrees that the priority should be connections across the region. He said: "I've said that myself over many years. I think both are important. You can't be forced to choose.

"London has never been forced to choose between good North-South connectivity and good east-west connectivity. And nor should we be forced to choose.

"But there is a question about sequencing and what comes first. I've always said the poor state of Northern England connectivity, east to west, across the Pennines, is the biggest problem we've got.

"So I would absolutely agree with that. But I don't think that allows you to say that North-South is not important."