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Rishi Sunak has defended his plans to cut the HS2 high-speed rail line to Manchester, criticizing the cost of the project as “huge” and saying he was prepared to make tough decisions.
The Prime Minister is expected to announce the cancellation of the HS2 Birmingham to Manchester line in his Conservative Party conference speech on Wednesday, with the billions of pounds of savings plowed into other transport projects in the north and midlands.
In a series of media interviews on Tuesday, Sunak refused to comment on “speculation”, but ministers, Tory officials and industry executives said he would cancel the northern leg of HS2 on Wednesday.
Sunak said the project’s costs were “huge” and equated his review of HS2 with last month’s decision to scrap parts of the UK’s net zero target on cost grounds.
He also confirmed that he believed the HS2 line to Manchester was less important than improved rail links between cities in the northern Pennines. “Going from east to west is the biggest concern for most people,” he told Times Radio.
Sunak let uncertainty about HS2 dominate the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, confusing and frustrating Tory officials, an issue that came back to haunt him in a radio interview on Tuesday morning.
“I will take the time, look at it carefully and make sure we make the right long-term decision for the country,” he told the BBC. Sunak said he would not “take shortcuts and chase headlines”.
Aides have not denied that Sunak will announce his new transport plan from the podium on Wednesday, but officials have been frantically working on a Plan B behind the scenes.
The Prime Minister knows that any new plans announced at the conference will be subject to forensic examination and experts may point out that it may be many years before they are implemented.
Downing Street declined to comment on whether the HS2 line from Birmingham to London will terminate in Euston or Old Oak Common, six miles from the center of the capital. Sunak’s allies said a report in The Times that the line to Euston would be suspended was “speculation”.
Andy Street, the Conservative mayor of the West Midlands, accused Sunak on Monday of “cancelling the future” and damaging investor confidence in the UK by halting one of the country’s most high-profile infrastructure projects.
“If you tell the international investment community you are going to do something, you have to keep your word,” he told a session on the sidelines of the conference. He declined to say whether he would resign over the issue.
Aides to Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt do not deny that he has approved significant cuts to the HS2 project. “A decision will be announced in due course,” one person said.
One minister said: “It’s unbelievable that this has dragged on for so long. It dominates everything.” Sunak plans to cancel high-speed rail to Manchester, a Tory official said in a speech in Manchester The line is “sub-optimal”.
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