THE Transport Secretary has reiterated his support for a high speed station in Bradford after being questioned about it by Judith Cummins MP.

This week, the Telegraph & Argus was among dozens of newspapers and websites across the North who joined forces to call for Britain's main political parties to commit to invest more to transport in the region.

Yesterday during Transport Questions in Parliament the Labour MP for Bradford South praised the campaign and echoed calls for greater funding.

She added: "The Secretary of State may have seen that newspapers across the North have come together again this week to call on the Government to commit to a series of policy changes to 'Power Up The North'.

"Towns and cities, villages and hamlets, despite our diversity, the North stand as one to call for more powers and funding.

"At the heart of this must be the transformative new rail network linking the great northern cities."

Mr Grayling replied: "Northern Powerhouse Rail is a manifesto commitment for this Government and the work is being done at the moment to take it forward, which I strongly support.

"In just the last few days we have published details of the interchanges between Northern Powerhouse Rail and HS2, demonstrating further our commitment to that project.

"With regard to Bradford, as the hon Lady knows, I have had meetings with the council leader. I am extremely sympathetic to the need to ensure that Bradford is a proper part of the Northern Powerhouse Rail network."

Ms Cummins said in a statement: “The difference in spending between London and the South East and the North of England cannot go on. We are still boarding decades old stopper trains to get from Bradford to Leeds, while London gets significantly more investment in transport.

“I want the North to have its fair share of funding across all Government departments, but transport would be a good start. Northern Powerhouse Rail needs to be a project that won’t be scrapped by the next prime minister, and it absolutely needs a city centre station in Bradford, the fifth biggest city in the country.”

She said over the last 10 years, London had an annual average of £708 of transport spending per person, well ahead of the £289 found in the North of England, according to IPPR North. This is a £419 difference.

Shadow transport secretary Andy MacDonald called for the Northern Powerhouse to be "more than a slogan" and urged the Government to match Labour's £10 billion plans for a Crossrail for the north.

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said the previous Labour government's record of investment in the north was lacking.

He added: "They spent nothing on new trains. They did not upgrade railways in the north.

"We are upgrading the roads in the north. We are upgrading the railways across the north.

"The Transpennine upgrade is a flagship scheme and the largest investment programme on the railways in the next control period.

"They have the brass neck to say that they're the ones with a plan. They did nothing. We're doing things."

Mr Grayling pledged his support to bring high-speed rail to Bradford in comments at the Conservative Party Conference in 2018 after Transport for the North proposed a new NPR line connecting Manchester and Leeds via Bradford.