03 October 2023 , 07:13
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Rishi Sunak is preparing to trigger an emergency Cabinet meeting to formally scrap HS2s northern leg.
Dropping his biggest hint yet the route from Birmingham to Manchester will be axed, the Prime Minister said the high speed railway’s costs had gone "far beyond" what was predicted and the sums involved were "enormous". He told Times Radio: "It's clear that the costs of this programme has escalated far beyond what anyone thought at the beginning.
"I know there's lots of speculation on it, but what I would say is I'll approach this in the same way I approach everything in this job, I will take the time to look at it properly, get across the detail and then decide what's right for the country. The sums involved are enormous and it's right that the Prime Minister takes proper care over it. It's obviously not my money - it's taxpayers' money and we should make the right decisions on these things."
Mr Sunak is expected to order Cabinet ministers to attend an emergency meeting on the fringes of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester. The PM, Transport Secretary Mark Harper and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt have refused to comment on reports they will ditch the 225mph line from Birmingham to Manchester.
Asked about the ongoing HS2 uncertainty, Mr Harper told a Conservative Home fringe meeting the PM was still deciding its fate. He said: “When he has reached conclusions he - as you saw two weeks ago when he did his speech about net-zero - he will set them out and he will explain why he makes the decisions that he does - and some people won’t like them and that’s OK.”
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Asked whether he had given up on HS2, Mr Sunak told the BBC: "Absolutely not. We have got spades on the ground on HS2 as we speak and we're getting on and delivering it. But it's not the only thing we're doing to help spread opportunity and level-up around the country."
The boss of one of the companies involved in building HS2 has said it would be a "waste of money" if the line from Birmingham terminates at Old Oak Common instead of Euston in central London as originally planned. Mark Reynolds, chief executive of Mace Group, which is building a new station in Birmingham and also in London Euston - if that part of the project continues into central London - told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he did not know if the link between Birmingham and Euston can be "rescued".
He said: "It's the right solution. If anyone thinks that ending from Birmingham to Old Oak Common is going to be strategic infrastructure, that is a waste of money and you might as well scrap the whole lot, which is ridiculous. What we have to do is invest in Euston because Euston also provides the capacity for Birmingham to Manchester, and that needs to be done as well."