Reeves Regional Investment Spending Was Announced by Tories 18 Months Ago – Guido Fawkes

Reeves Regional Investment Spending Was Announced by Tories 18 Months Ago

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“The Chancellor more than doubles investment in local transport in England’s city regions, delivering the biggest ever investment over the next five years” shouted a triumphant Treasury press release yesterday, ahead of a speech this morning by Rachel from accounts. The embattled Chancellor is on a regional tour ahead of the Spending Review, attempting to salve the anxieties of increasingly frustrated Labour MPs (many with tiny majorities)…

Reeves is expected to say: “a Britain that is better off cannot rely on a handful of places forging ahead of the rest of the country,” adding that the “result of such thinking has been growth created in too few places, felt by too few people and wide gaps between regions, and between our cities and towns.” So the usual rhetoric. She is ‘announcing’ £15.6 billion of funding for local transport projects in England’s city regions – including South Yorkshire, the North East, the East Midlands and Tees Valley. There’s only one problem…

A large amount of the funding was already announced and allocated in a round that took place under the Tories called “City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements 2” in 2023. As one source puts it: “it’s been on Gov.UK for 18 months. Labour got elected, put it all on hold, and now they’ve unpaused it – meanwhile claiming it’s a big win and that they came up with the idea”. Ah…

It’ll take more than reheated Tory announcements to calm the nerves of Labour backbenchers. They are getting seriously worried Labour’s promise of a ‘decade of national renewal’ is coming to nothing…