内容摘要：Lawrence Tallon, MHRA chief executive, said opening the new site in the city was aimed at "strengthening our ability to collaborate with partners across the north of England".

Lawrence Tallon, MHRA chief executive, said opening the new site in the city was aimed at "strengthening our ability to collaborate with partners across the north of England".

Sunak had also announced some of these same projects, including the development of a mass transit network in West Yorkshire, in his Network North plan, intended to compensate for the decision to scrap the HS2 line north of Birmingham.Labour reviewed these projects when they came to power in July, arguing they had not been fully funded.

Conservative shadow Treasury minister Gareth Davies accused Labour of copying and pasting announcements made by the Conservative government".Conservative mayor of Tees Valley Ben Houchen said Labour's decision meant projects in his area had been delayed by a year which was "frustrating" but added that he was "absolutely delighted" the funding had now been given the go ahead.North East Mayor Kim McGuinness said the £1.8bn funding for her area was a "game changer", while Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram said the investment was a "massive vote of confidence in our region".

Liberal Democrat Treasury spokeswoman Daisy Cooper warned the chancellor must now deliver, because "these communities have heard these same promises before, only to be left with phantom transport networks".She added: "Extra investment in public transport must also focus on cutting fares for hard-pressed families being clobbered by a cost of living crisis."

Zoe Billingham, head of the IPPR North think tank, welcomed the investment but said that while money had been provided to lay the tracks there was "still a question about the ongoing running costs" and the extent to which the new transport networks would pay for themselves.

Following the speech Reeves was asked if there would be funding for a new rail link between Manchester and Liverpool.The origins of Reaction Engines go back to the Hotol project in the 1980s. This was a futuristic space plane that caught the public imagination with the prospect of a British aircraft flying beyond the atmosphere.

The secret sauce of Hotol was heat exchanger technology, an attempt to cool the super-heated 1,000C air that enters an engine at hypersonic speeds.Without cooling this will melt aluminium, and is, Mr Varvill says, "literally too hot to handle".

Fast forward three decades to October 2024 and Reaction Engines was bringing the heat exchanger to life at sites in the UK and US.UK Ministry of Defence funding took the company into hypersonic research with Rolls-Royce for an unmanned aircraft. But that was not enough to keep the business afloat.