Louise Haigh resignation ‘a worry for transport in the North’
Northern leaders paid tribute to the “extremely effective” Louise Haigh amid unease about how her departure will affect major transport decisions.
Haigh, a Sheffield MP, had a strong relationship with Labours’ mayors in the North and only last week met Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham and West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker to discuss the idea of a new rail link to replace the cancelled leg of HS2.
Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire, shared a stage with Haigh in Leeds for the launch of an integrated national transport strategy on Thursday just hours before the story of her fraud conviction emerged.
She said Haigh was an “extremely effective transport minister” who lived her mantra: “Move fast and fix things”.
“Her approach to working closely with local leaders to co-create solutions to old problems was refreshing, and the elegant and stoic way she responded a sign of her character,” Brabin said.
Haigh’s replacement, Heidi Alexander, is the MP for Swindon South and a former deputy mayor of London under Sadiq Khan.
While she has experience in transport, it has been almost entirely focused on London.
While arguing for more investment in the capital in 2019, the new Transport Secretary was quoted as saying: “Let’s be honest, when we invest in transport in London, we invest in transport in the whole of the country.”
Such comments will worry Northern leaders who believe they need an ally in the Cabinet to make the case for investment ahead of a crucial spending review in the spring.
A Labour insider told The i Paper: “Making a London MP [Brentford and Isleworth’s Ruth Cadbury] the chair of the [Transport] Select Committee and a former London transport chief secretary of state [Alexander] is politically tone-deaf.
“At least in Louise we had someone who got it. She went down very well with the people in the North that need transport reform.”
Another source said Alexander “will be held to a much higher standard by Northern leaders”.
“There was a willingness to give Lou the benefit of the doubt,” they said. “When she said she would get improvements to east-west transport we knew she meant it. There wont be that now with Heidi. Heidi will have to say the same things that Lou did otherwise people will get very annoyed.”
Haigh follows Sue Gray in leaving the Government, another key figure who was seen as pivotal in delivering for the North.
A source close to the plan for a rail link between Manchester and Birmingham to replace the scrapped HS2 leg said they do not think Haigh’s departure is a blow as the mayors will continue to “push it forward” and because it has “good traction” in the Department for Transport.
“Heidi is very good but it’s a shame there is no northern link which will make it harder,” they added.
Another Northern mayor said Haigh had “been a real supporter for us” and had helped “move a load of projects further on”.
“She was just getting things done,” they added. “For the North I think Louise was a real champion so I’m sorry to see her go. I think that feeling is reflected across the mayors.”
Henri Murison, chief executive of lobby group Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said: “Louise Haigh has seriously engaged with the productivity issues in the North, repeating the Government’s commitment to better connect both sides of the Pennines by delivering Northern Powerhouse Rail including new lines just yesterday at launch of the process to develop a national transport strategy.”
