Bradford South MP Judith Cummins on HS2 announcement

TODAY is a tense day for Bradford Bulls fans as the team gear up for the semi-final playoff that could bring us just one step away from a return to the Super League.

The Bulls have already excelled – I congratulate them on their highest league placement in eight seasons.

Watching their victory over the York Knights last weekend, it was fantastic to see Bulls fans united in pride and optimism for their team and our city.

This pride reflects the ambition so many of us share for Bradford outside of sport too - to improve our city and make Bradford an even better place to live, grow up and work in.

Judith Cummins

Yet, after this week’s fiasco of a Conservative Party conference, it is obvious to anyone watching that the Conservatives do not view the people of our city with any sort of respect.

Just this week, the Conservative Party deputy chair came under intense criticism for his appalling insult to Bradfordians.

When quizzed about improving our transport links, he said to an applauding audience: “Would you want to get there [to Bradford] quicker?”.

My answer to that question is a resounding yes.

How the T&A covered Lee Anderson's comments

Bradford is one of the worst connected cities in the UK, despite the daily commute between here and Leeds being the busiest between any UK cities.

On our railway, lack of capacity and slow travel times keep investment away from our city and make it harder to unlock our huge economic potential and to open-up more opportunities for our young people.

This week, the Prime Minister made the announcement to scrap HS2 north of Birmingham. Rather than connect our region’s economy to rest of the country with modern, fast, increased capacity lines fit for the future, the North will be held back once again, costing our region jobs, investment and opportunity.

This short-term decision-making and rowing back on previous commitments does little to give our people and businesses the certainty and clarity they need.

Instead, the Prime Minister says, the money will be used for a scheme of patchwork projects called ‘Network North’.

Yet many of these are not new - they were either already promised or have been in the pipeline for years.

Take the offer for Bradford including a city centre station.

This station has been promised over 60 times, linked to a brand new Northern Powerhouse Rail line.

While the devil will be in the detail, I remain sceptical about these re-announcements and rehashing of past promises.

It’s jam tomorrow again. After 13 years, just get on with it.

Filling in pot holes and improving branch lines are good in themselves, but they won’t produce the transformative changes that the North needs and deserves.

You cannot cut your way to growth.

When it comes to Bradford and the North it always seems to be that we should be happy with ‘either/or’ – we can’t have HS2, NPR and our potholes filled.

The Government’s attitude is it’s ‘just good enough’ for the North, rather than investing in our future prosperity on the same basis as London and the South East.

The truth is that the only reason the Prime Minister has axed HS2 is because of this Government’s own incompetence and their mismanagement of the nation’s flagship ‘levelling up’ project that will never reach the North. It is a short-term decision to help a crisis-ridden Government. It sums up 13 years of Conservative failure.

They have scrapped HS2, and it is scraps for the North. Now we learn that the Government has taken a wrecking ball to future plans for the project by ‘spitefully’ authorising the sale of properties that were subject to compulsory purchase orders on the route.

I will always fight for the best for Bradford, and welcome investment into our city. But, after so many broken promises by this broken Tory Government, I will believe it when I see it.