Morgan jokes unfunded pledges risk frontbenchers being “thrown in Mersey”

Recently appointed Labour shadow rail minister Stephen Morgan has warned that an incoming Labour government would have to look “carefully at implications” for HS2, though saying it wanted to see it delivered in full. 

Morgan told an audience at a LabourList fringe event in Liverpool on Sunday morning that the Tories had “blown a hole in the budget, making promises they have no intention of keeping” in the “staggering Tory HS2 fiasco”. Morgan said that though Labour “want to see HS2 delivered in full” it had to consider the financial implications. 

The fringe event followed the announcement by the government last week that it was abandoning the northern leg of HS2 from the West Midlands to Manchester, with the funding being used for a range of alternative alternative projects in the north of England and Wales. 

Morgan made no fiscal commitments on transport, joking that Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves would “throw me in the Mersey for an unfunded spending commitment”. 

Morgan said “I am shocked in this day and age we have Victorian infrastructure… If we want to grow the economy, we need a transport infrastructure fit for future.” The rail minister said the party will use conference as an opportunity to talk to metro mayors and the industry and find a solution.

Great to speak with @LabourList and @WorldlineUKI this morning about Labour’s plans to deliver the biggest reform of public transport in a generation #Lab23 pic.twitter.com/1QeYI0fiul

— Stephen Morgan MP (@StephenMorganMP) October 8, 2023

West of England Metro Mayor Dan Norris said he thought Labour was getting “smarter” with its transport policy, by introducing a “multi-layered policy”.

As mayor, Norris has championed ‘birthday buses’ allowing a month of free transport on buses during the month of your birthday. The mayor said this was introduced partly to deal with the cost of living crisis and also “to bring lots of policies together, to create behaviour change, and to get data.” 

When asked why transport infrastructure was not part of Labour’s five missions, announced by Keir Starmer in July, Norris said :“There are so many pressing issues for the country, that’s why it’s not in top five… [there is a] really catastrophic situation with government funding”.

Norris noted that different metro mayors have different powers. “We don’t know what the situation is going to be, Liz Truss blew away a lot of money… [under Labour] metro mayors could do trials of various initiatives. If successful they can be implemented across the country.”

Labour’s candidate for Avon and Somerset Police and Crime Commission Clare Moody said that though transport was not one of the of the five missions, it was still part of Labour’s mission for government.

Moody worked in Gordon Brown’s Number 10 policy unit, and said that cross-departmental communication was crucial. Open communication between the transport department, the Treasury, the business department was vital. Moody said: “You’ve got to connect them together if you are going to do sensible policy making.”

The Fabian Society’s research director Luke Raikes noted that whilst “quick wins in transport don’t exist”, it was possible “by the end of the first parliament, a difference can be made on buses”.

Raikes said that moving transport from the hands of central government and allowing it to be delivered on a regional level was the way forward, noting the Bee Network launched by Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham as the standard.

Chief Operating Officer of Worldline MTS James Bain agreed, arguing that investment in transport infrastructure is an asset not a cost. “From our perspective, investment has a broader definition than concrete and steel”, said Bain.

“Railways still run on same principle of 200 years ago; the rest of the world has moved on,” argued Bain. By upgrading infrastructure, young people “could leave a better world than what they inherited”.

Bain also set out the case for expanding concessionary travel to all under-18s in education or training, and Morgan promised to look at a newly published Worldline report on the subject.

Asked whether the scrapping of the northern leg of HS2 was an attempt by the Conservatives to sabotage a future Labour government, Norris concluded: “No, they are just incompetent.”

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