Prime Ministerial rivals have heeded a warning from newspapers across the North of England not to turn their backs on the region.

Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have both responded to a joint campaign, launched on Tuesday by 15 regional print and digital titles, which called on the Tory leadership candidates to answer five key questions about what they would do for the North.

Labour’s Lisa Nandy, Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, also took notice of the call and responded to the questions, posed in a united appeal by both Newsquest and Reach plc titles.

In addition, Reach’s digital-only Northern Agenda title exclusively revealed that Ms Truss would reverse Boris Johnson’s decision not to build the Northern Powerhouse Rail project and instead press ahead with the high-speed link between Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds.

How the Northern Agenda presented its exclusive

Mr Johnson’s decision to scrap most of the eastern leg of the High Speed 2 railway line and dilute plans for a new line between Leeds and Manchester was met with uproar by Northern newspapers last year.

Dan O’Donoghue, who is Westminster editor for Reach’s Northern titles, posted on Twitter last night: “The pledge follows on from our ‘don’t turn your back’ campaign.

“The move would be a reversal of Boris Johnson’s much-maligned proposal, unveiled last November, which saw the budget for NPR slashed by £24.9bn, with the original vision for a new line replaced with upgrades to existing routes.

“Newspaper titles across the North will tomorrow carry Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak’s pitch to the region. Lisa Nandy will also spell out Labour’s offer.”

The five “key questions” asked of the two candidates, as well as Labour, were:

• What will you do to make sure the commitments made to the North by your predecessors as Prime Minister are kept?
• The average worker in the North is 50pc less productive than one in London, what will you do to address this widening gap?
• What will you do to address spiralling rates of child poverty in parts of Northern England?
• How far will you go to give Northern leaders control over education and skills, transport and health budgets currently held by Westminster, and will you give them more powers to raise or lower taxes to boost local economies?
• Will you retain a government department responsible for tackling regional inequalities with a Cabinet-level Minister for whom this is their main job?

Mr Sunak’s responses included a pledge “double down” on levelling up and identified education as a key area which could boost the region’s economy, while he also vowed to “work with local leaders on what the future of transport looks like in the North”.

Ms Truss meanwhile backed calls for a “levelling up formula”, similar to the Barnett Formula used to distribute cash in Scotland and Wales as a means to ensure “areas that have been left behind get the support they deserve”.

Ms Nandy’s offer includes an investment of £280bn over a decade to close the North/South divide and an “end the Hunger Games-style grants” that force local authorities to compete for small pots of cash, instead giving leaders the tools to have “financial autonomy”.