Today transport secretary Lord Adonis set out the government’s vision for a second high-speed rail link. The Y-shaped network will allow passengers to commute between Euston and Leeds in just over an hour, and Euston and Manchester in a mere 40 minutes, with possible extensions right up to Scotland.

Lord Adonis’ report makes much of the environmental benefits, the creation of 10,000 new jobs and the integration of local and international rail networks across the country. But perhaps the greatest benefit will come from helping to “overcome the historic north-south divide” and “strengthen the ties that bind Scotland and England”.

The new network will smash the stereotypical division between the “affluent” South and the “impoverished” North, a division that the Office for National Statistics takes very seriously. In its report for 2006-08, it found Scottish males are expected to live up to 75 years, and females to 79.9 years. But males in the south-east of England have an average life expectancy of 79.2 years, with females in the South West top at 83.1 years.

By allowing easy commutes across the country and encouraging formerly entrenched populations

to merge, stereotypical notions of North and South could disappear, awarding Labour an incidental (if costly) win for its much vaunted bid to reduce social inequality.

Despite the fact that the project will cost an estimated £30bn, the new rail links could also provide a vital secondary benefit.

MPs with constituencies as far north as Sheffield and Manchester now falling within the Committee For Standards in Public Life’s mooted “hour catchment” area around Westminster, meaning they will no longer be entitled to claim second home allowances.

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