I spent a happy morning last Friday with my daughter and her son (our first grandson) going round the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) in Manchester. Bright though he is, I’m not sure that young Jarvis — seven months — took much in, but my daughter and I had a great time.

If you’ve not been to MOSI, I recommend a visit.

Appropriately, it’s on on the site of the ‘Liverpool Road’ station, the Manchester end of the first passenger railway in the world. The whole of the museum is a reminder of the critical role which the historic county of Lancashire played for two centuries, transforming Britain from a relatively small island economy to the workshop of the world.

But there’s a myth associated with Lancashire’s industrial glories — that we were once more prosperous than the south of England.

That’s not quite correct, as figures provided me by the House of Commons’ Library have shown. In fact, going right back into the 19th century, London has always been wealthier per head of population than any other region of the country.

What, however, is true is that even in the 1950s, the North West was much better off than most other regions of England, the south west, and East Anglia included.

More significantly, we were on a par with the Home Counties — Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Surrey, Essex.

What then happened was that a big gap opened between us and other regions in the north — and those Home Counties. Today those counties are at least 20 per cent more prosperous than the North West. The ‘north/south’ divide is for real.

It’s to rebalance our nation’s economy that is the principal purpose of the proposed High Speed Line (HS2) to the North West and Yorkshire.

Thankfully, this Monday the Bill for this project received its Second Reading — approval in principle — by a whopping, all-party majority of 411.

HS2 is not a magic wand. But it can and will make a big difference — and ensure the North West has a great future as well as a wonderful past.