A Bolton MP says she had to check if an announcement the government was giving money meant for HS2 to London was “not a parody.”

Yasmin Qureshi, Labour MP for Bolton South East has expressed her frustration at a recent announcement made by the Department for Transport on 20 December.

The announcement, made via X formerly Twitter, featured a graphic which said: “£235m to improve roads in London. Made possible by rerouted HS2 funding.”

The graphic also featured a watermark which claimed it as “A Network North Project”.

The Bolton News: A now deleted tweet from the Department for TransportA now deleted tweet from the Department for Transport (Image: Twitter)

Ms Qureshi said: “I had to check, check and check again that this is not a parody!

“The government has diverted money meant for the Northern leg of HS2 into improving the roads in London.

“To cap it all off, they have called this a 'Network North' project!

“There isn't a more perfect illustration about where this Conservative government's true priorities lie.”

The Northern leg of the HS2 was scrapped at the conservative conference in October, but Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in that statement that the government would “reinvest every single penny” saved from HS2  towards funding "hundreds of new transport projects" in the North and the Midlands

But the projects currently listed on the Network North webpage shows that the South and East of England will have 80.95 per cent more Network North road improvement schemes than the North.

The North and Midlands will see just under 45 per cent of all Network North road improvement schemes.