TRANSPORT Secretary Grant Shapps denied the Government has reneged on promises to upgrade links for the North and Midlands in its scaled-back rail plan for the region, while Labour leader Keir Starmer said anger in Bradford is "palpable".

Boris Johnson was accused of a “betrayal” after it was announced on Thursday that the eastern leg of the HS2 high speed rail line was being scrapped and the Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) link from Manchester to Leeds downgraded.

Leaders had been pushing for a new rail link between Manchester and Leeds to run via Bradford and for the city to get a new station. 

Rumours and leaks suggesting this would not happen were confirmed yesterday with the publication of the Integrated Rail Plan. 

Instead, the line between Leeds and Bradford will be electrified, giving a journey time "which could be as low as 12 minutes".

The plan says: "We carefully examined the other options put forward by TfN (Transport for the North) for full newbuild lines from Liverpool to Leeds via Manchester and Bradford. They would have made ManchesterLeeds journeys only four minutes faster than the option we have chosen, and cost an extra £18 billion."

In March last year, the Transport Secretary told the Telegraph & Argus that he was keen to progress NPR and added: “Bradford has a lot going for it and I’m very keen to make sure Bradford benefits from it.”

He added: “This is a Government that is all about levelling up and connecting communities that sometimes feel that they have been left behind and when I hear that I think of Bradford because you have two rail stations that come to buffers and that’s something that this Leeds-Manchester line could resolve.”

Mr Shapps today insisted the Government was fulfilling its pledges that both projects would go ahead.

“They are absolutely being fulfilled. We are producing that around 30-minute journey from Manchester to Leeds,” he told Sky News.

“When it comes to HS2, we are going to deliver HS2 trains (we are looking at) the best way to do that into Leeds.

“The plan for HS2 was conceived 15 years ago. What we want to do is make sure it actually integrates with these plans for Northern Powerhouse Rail which we are building.

“The only disconnect is some of the complaints from, I have to say, largely Labour leaders who are completely misleading people.

“This will have been the only time in history when massively improving everybody’s rail services would have been counted as a betrayal.”

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said the Government’s scaled-back plans for rail links in the North and Midlands are a “second-class option”.

“The Government has ripped up those promises and betrayed people in the North. I was in Bradford yesterday and the anger is palpable,” Sir Keir told BBC Radio 5 Live.

“People feel very strongly that promises have been made to them and they have just been ripped up. The idea that ‘levelling up’ is anything more than a slogan has absolutely blown away by what happened yesterday.

“The whole point of HS2 was a high speed line going up including to Leeds. The whole point of the promise of Northern Powerhouse Rail was a new line going from Manchester to Leeds.

“Trying to upgrade what you have got is a second-class option for the North.”