The Tracks of Our Tears: Will Reeves’ New Transport Plan Finally Create Jobs?

Finito World

Chancellors rarely announce £15 billion without a calculation. For Rachel Reeves, whose time at the Treasury has so far been marked by caution, today’s commitment to regional transport is both a pivot and a statement. It tells us something about the Labour government’s priorities; but more importantly, it reveals an emerging philosophy about who gets to participate in Britain’s economy — and who gets left behind.

The numbers are dazzling enough. Greater Manchester will get £2.5 billion to stretch its tramlines to Stockport, Bury, and beyond. The West Midlands will receive a similarly sized chunk to stitch together its emerging sports quarter with Birmingham’s centre. Other regions — West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Tees Valley — will see billions flow toward new bus stations, metro extensions, and long-gestating mass transit dreams.

But beneath the maps and masterplans is a different question: what is this infrastructure really for?

It is no coincidence that these are former industrial regions where low productivity, poor inter-city mobility, and labour market detachment have been entrenched problems since deindustrialisation. In parts of the North East and West Midlands, unemployment remains stubbornly above the national average. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation reports that in the North East, one in three working-age adults in poverty live more than 45 minutes from a major job centre by public transport. And while Leeds or Birmingham may have boomed in pockets, the connective tissue — bus routes, suburban tram stops, and reliable train links — has too often been frayed or non-existent.

These new commitments, then, are not just about shortening commutes or lowering emissions. They are about employability.

If you cannot get to where the jobs are — whether to a training centre in Bradford or an industrial park in Doncaster — then upskilling and economic participation become theoretical virtues, not lived possibilities. This is the hidden logic of transport policy, too rarely made explicit: mobility is destiny.

In this respect, Reeves’ most radical act may not be the money itself, but her decision to finally question the Green Book — the Treasury’s long-standing manual for how value is calculated in infrastructure spending. For decades, this spreadsheet calculus has favoured London, where returns on investment are obvious, immediate, and easily monetised. To spend in Sunderland rather than Southwark required almost ideological bravery — or a change in the formula.

The Conservatives talked endlessly of “levelling up,” and in fairness, Rishi Sunak had also begun a review of the Green Book. But for many regional leaders, delivery remained elusive. Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen, a Conservative, greeted the new funding with relief, even as he lamented a year’s delay. Labour, having criticised the inadequacies of the Network North plan after the HS2 reversal, now embraces several of its core components — only, one suspects, with firmer funding and fewer gimmicks.

Will it work? That depends on follow-through. The record of large-scale infrastructure in Britain is a cautionary tale. Budgets balloon. Deadlines slip. And in the hands of too many contractors, the noble idea of connectivity is lost in procurement acronyms.

But there is no reason why things must go wrong. In Vienna or Copenhagen, mass transit enables flexible labour markets and flourishing cultural quarters. In Seoul or Singapore, public transport is a synonym for ambition, not a symptom of failure.

Reeves, in her own way, seems to understand this. Her reference to “growth created in too few places” is not just about GDP — it’s about belonging. And belonging requires access.

Still, not everyone is convinced. The Liberal Democrats have called for fare cuts to accompany the investment, warning that transport promises without affordability will do little for those crushed by the cost-of-living crisis. The Conservatives, for their part, have accused Labour of offering fantasy finances — the old charge, rolled out anew.

But cynicism is cheap. Transport investment is not. And if done well, this programme could mark a turning point: a moment when government finally accepted that the route to prosperity runs not through spreadsheets, but along well-lit platforms in Doncaster, Sunderland, and St Helens.