Britain’s next budget will include a $9.6 billion investment in transport outside London as part of a plan to reduce economic inequality.
Finance Minister Rishi Sunak will present the initiative in the next budget and expenditure review next Wednesday.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s “match-up” program is seen as crucial to retaining the support of former bastions of the Labor opposition that supported him in the 2019 elections.
His Conservative Party won several seats in the north of England with a promise to exit the country from the European Union and create jobs.
Funds from the transportation project will go to areas of the former Labor “Red Wall”, which the Conservatives supported two years earlier, and is seen as compensation for this support.
The Finance Ministry in a statement highlighted that the government will invest in urban areas to increase productivity through the expansion of the tram network, along with improving trains and stations.
It will also include facilities to improve bus services.
The government is seeking to speed up travel times, simplify payments and enhance services outside London, in the face of complaints that there is poor service in areas outside the capital, affecting business.
“This transportation revolution will help achieve this balance by modernizing our local transportation networks to suit our cities and the people who live and work in them,” Sunak said in the statement.
