MPs from northern England have voiced fears of a “brain drain” to southern infrastructure projects after Rachel Reeves announced a string of major developments in the south.
The chancellor announced on Wednesday in a speech about driving growth that she would give backing to the expansion of Heathrow, as well as other London airports, as well as kickstarting the “golden triangle” of scientific research between the capital and Oxford and Cambridge.
Northern mayors said they were pleased with one change announced in the speech, which was a review of the Treasury’s “green book” methodology that assesses value for money – a method they have often argued is skewed against investments in the north of England.
But the centrepieces of the speech were plans concentrated in the south – most involving private investment.
MPs said it would be hard to communicate the benefits to their constituents and they were worried that a lack of qualified construction staff and engineers would mean any future projects in the north of England could lose out.
But analysts said there were opportunities for high-skilled workers to be diverted to other projects after the cancellations of major parts of HS2.
“There are good commitments to northern infrastructure in the speech, albeit smaller scale. But my worry is that we have a major skills shortage in this country and that these huge projects in the south of multiple airport expansions, the Oxford-Cambridge scheme and the Thames Crossing will be a brain drain of talent,” one northern Labour MP said.
“The communication of this strategy is tone-deaf,” another Labour MP said. “There are many possible benefits for the north because of the manufacturing associated with big infrastructure projects, but we hear very little about any of that.”
Another said that Reeves had concerned them with her pledge to drive down net migration to the UK even at the expense of growth – saying it would leave the north of England with a major loss of skilled construction workers if such large southern infrastructure projects went ahead.
“I think its worth exploring the capacity restraints of the UK, especially in relation to the part of the speech which said that the government will reduce net migration even if means missing out on growth,” they said. “Missing out on growth sounds like missing out on infrastructure.”
Mayors including Liverpool’s Steve Rotheram and Manchester’s Andy Burnham have continually pushed for the government to devolve powers over skills and training. Rotheram also said he felt his city’s airport was in danger of losing out. “Right now, we’re the largest city region in Europe without a hub airport connection,” he said.
“That’s not just an inconvenience – it’s a major barrier to growth. Direct global access would be a gamechanger for our businesses, unlocking international trade, tourism and investment that’s long overdue.
“Liverpool John Lennon airport has massive untapped potential. I’ll be raising this directly with the secretary of state responsible – because our region deserves its fair share of project benefits.
“These mega infrastructure projects will need enough people with the right skills to get them built – especially with the challenges of building new hospitals, new industrial clusters and 1.5m homes over the next five years. It is estimated that up to 25% of current construction workers will retire before the end of the decade significantly increasing the pressures in skill shortage areas.
“Mayors are the people with long-term strategic views of their areas and are ready to help drive growth – and we are best positioned to get people trained and ready to go.”
Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said the government should prioritise a new rail network in the north of England or risk losing skills from the construction of projects such as HS2 and Crossrail.
“If the country is ever to build northern powerhouse rail, we need a tunnel from Manchester airport into Manchester Piccadilly, continuing out towards Yorkshire.
“It will be harder and more expensive to do this the longer we wait once the main tunnelling works are over on HS2 towards Euston and in the West Midlands – a return to stop-start in infrastructure would mean people retire or move abroad and we will then have to re-build the supply chain.”
Zoë Billingham, the director of IPPR North, said the number of construction workers had shrunk by more than 300,000 since 2019, and is at its lowest level since the early 2000s. Reeves said directly in her speech that migration could not be the answer – saying she would rather take a hit to growth and reduce net migration to the UK.
“With limited numbers of construction workers there are choices to be made by the government about which major projects to prioritise and this clearly has a regional impact if major projects in the south-east are committed to ahead of elsewhere in the UK,” Billingham said. “Instead, we think there should be a renewed focus on construction skills so as not to hold back future projects, especially in the north.”
Reeves told ITV that there were key infrastructure projects already announced in the north of England. “We’re upgrading the TransPennine route, electrifications of train lines in the north of England, investing in mass transit in West Yorkshire where I’m an MP in Leeds – it’s the only major city in Europe that doesn’t have any sort of mass transit system. We want to change that as a government,” Reeves added.
Reeves hinted in the spending review there would be more publicly funded projects, saying it would give “further detail of our plans for infrastructure right across the UK”.