Some of Northern's present wider timetable approaches make little sense, For example, the first weekday Halifax-Leeds train used to be c0603, arriving Leeds around 0645. Whilst some of these were passengers changing at Leeds onto London trains, one could see by the numbers departing the station that others were going to work in Leeds for around 0700.
For thevlast few months, the first Halifax-Leeds service has been at 0646, arriving Leeds at 0725. Whilst, as with other services, the numbers travelling to work will be lower, there is no reason to think that, for those who are going out to work, their start time has got any later so it is difficult to see why it is at all serving passenger needs for Northern to make such a late start to their services.
(Incidentally, their first service having arriived in Leeds at 0725, Northern then has a 2nd service arriving at 0730. A late start followed by a bunching of services really makes little sense.).