HS3 would be a "key commitment", claims Cable

BUSINESS Secretary Vince Cable has vowed a trans-Pennine HS3 link from Liverpool to Hull through Manchester and Leeds would be a key commitment should the Lib-Dems be part of another coalition government.

On a visit to Manchester to announce the expansion of Greater Manchester’s Local Enterprise Partnership, which will see an extra £56.6m invested in the area between 2016 and 2021, Mr Cable said improving ‘lateral’ transport links would be a major aspiration of his party.

“We are very committed to HS3,” he said. “One of the criticisms of HS2 is that it’s just north to south. I’ve been on the trans-Pennine route and I know how torturously slow it is to try to get from Liverpool to Leeds and beyond.

“It is a major priority, even though down in the South West they will complain bitterly, saying ‘what about us’.
 
“HS2 is very important, but we do also need lateral routes across the Pennines, and probably also to East Anglia.”

Mr Cable was visiting Manchester Growth Hub’s headquarters where he met several businesses which have benefited from its support.

“It’s really inspirational to be here,” said Mr Cable. “It’s all very well talking about business theoretically, but these are real businesses run by real people, many of them highly creative.

“There is a lot of innovation going on. The old world when you could just mass manufacture things are gone and the only way British companies are going to survive is by being highly imaginative and that is the common theme here.”

Mr Cable was also heralding a £40m funding for the UK synthetic biology industry, £10.2m of which was being diverted to the University of Manchester, a world leader in the field.

And the Business Secretary also reaffirmed Lib/Dem commitment to devolved power from central government, his visit timed also to celebrate the historic deal for Manchester in the wake of the Scottish independence referendum.

“We’ve (the Lib/Dems) always believed in strong local government and it’s happening in not quite the traditional form we imagined. Still, in our view, Britain is far too centralised, but it’s a move in the right direction.

“You can’t really have proper decentralised government unless local authorities can fix their own taxes and to have much greater freedom on borrowing. But this is pioneering in Greater Manchester and it’s ahead of the pack and it’s a really good role model.”

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