LONDON — Labour will legislate to ensure that London and the South receives a smaller share of public investment in future, the shadow chancellor will say on Saturday.
John McDonnell will point to projects such as London’s Crossrail rail link to demonstrate that the South has for too long benefited at the expense of the North.
“The Crossrail transport link alone is due to cost four times the entire public investment budget for Yorkshire, or six and half times that for the North East,” he will say at Labour’s Regional Economic Conference in Liverpool.
“We will make sure that no government can ever again bias its own investment plans so heavily against the majority of the country.”
A report by the IPPR think tank last year found that public infrastructure spending per-person is six times greater in London than in the North. According to their analysis, the cost of Crossrail alone at £4.6 billion will exceed the £4.3 billion to be spend on infrastructure projects in the North.
McDonnell will pledge to introduce a “Barnett formula for the north.” Under the Barnett formula public spending in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales is allocated in proportion to spending in England.
Under Labour’s plans a future Corbyn government would have to audit regional spending against economic need and report to Parliament “when the investment imbalances are excessive.”
The announcement comes as Labour faces a decline in support in its Northern heartlands. The party is currently on course to lose the previously safe seat of Copeland in Cumbria at a by-election due to be held on February 23.
Bookies have the Conservatives as strong favourites to take the seat which was departed by former Labour MP Jamie Reed last month.
The party also risk losing the upcoming Stoke Central by-election due to be held on the same day. Bookies currently have the contest on a knife edge with Labour and UKIP both joint favourites to win.
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