Rishi Sunak has been urged to appoint a cabinet minister for the north of England by a group of Conservative MPs representing the region, amid nervousness about the Conservatives’ chances of retaining the “red wall” at the next election.
A manifesto released by a caucus of Tory backbenchers, known as the Northern Research Group, called for more tax responsibilities to be devolved from Westminster and the prioritisation of an east-west rail line, linking Liverpool and Hull.
The group’s eight demands included 500,000 more homes being built in the north, and was released on the eve of the Conservative party conference in Manchester.
Sunak this week denied voters in the north of England would feel betrayed after reports that the second phase of HS2 – linking Birmingham and Manchester – could be scaled back. Senior Conservatives, including Boris Johnson, have said such a move would be a dereliction of the levelling up agenda.
And with the long campaign for the next general election now under way, jitters are growing among MPs in the “red wall” of seats that turned blue for the first time in 2019.
The NRG manifesto pushes for more funding for the north, as well as a dedicated cabinet minister for the region and a Commons committee to scrutinise their work. It also suggests existing housing stock should be decarbonsied, contra to Sunak’s speech in which he rowed back on several net zero targets.
John Stevenson, MP for Carlisle and chair of the NRG, said he wanted to see the plans adopted by No 10 before next year’s likely election to bring about a “revitalised north”.
“With the north acting as kingmakers for the next election, the government must listen to northern voices,” he said.
“Our manifesto addresses this, presenting tangible steps that ensure the north’s vast potential is not just acknowledged but actively harnessed.”
The Tory landslide general election win in 2019 saw Boris Johnson elected to Downing Street on the back of a wave of victories in seats across the north.
However, Labour has been making progress in its former heartlands. It won last year’s Wakefield byelection, and took the Tory stronghold of Selby and Ainsty in North Yorkshire earlier this summer.
Several prominent NRG members signed a pledge vowing to vote against any tax hikes this week, in a sign of the strength of frustration with the government’s trajectory heading into the next election campaign.
It came after the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank calculated that the Tories will have presided over the biggest set of tax rises in a single parliament since records began after the second world war.
