HS2 northern leg: ‘Money is not infinite’ – Grant Shapps hints at change to HS2 plans as section looks set to be scrapped
Grant Shapps has hinted at a change to plans for HS2, as the northern section of the rail project looks set to be scrapped.
Sky News understands the high-speed line planned between Birmingham and Manchester will be binned by the prime minister due to concerns over the cost of the much delayed project.
And it is still unclear if the final section between Old Oak Common in west London and the planned central destination in the capital at Euston will go ahead.
Politics Hub: Lib Dem leader faces questions live on Sky News
Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips
Watch live each week on Sunday at 8:30am on Sky channel 501, Freeview 233, Virgin 602, the Sky News website and app or YouTube
Speaking to Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips show, Mr Shapps would not confirm the reports, but he suggested there could be a change to the “sequencing” and “pace” of HS2 from the government due to the soaring price tag.
“Money is not infinite,” said the former transport secretary, who is now in charge of the Ministry of Defence.
“All of these big decisions where budgets are, particularly in the case of HS2, inexorably going higher and higher and higher, and your viewers are having to pay that bill, it is absolutely right that the government looks at it and says, hold on a minute, is this just a sort of open-ended cheque or are we going to make sure this project gets delivered to a pace and a timetable that actually works for the taxpayer?
“We take those long-term decisions seriously, but we don’t think any amount of money, no matter how big the budget gets, that you should just carry on ploughing it in. There has a point where you say hold on a minute, let’s just take a break here.”
Mr Shapps also pointed to the impact of COVID and the Ukraine war on the public purse.
“The country has to respond to the circumstances,” he said. “We did not know there would be coronavirus, a one in 100 year event… we didn’t know there would be a war on in Europe… so of course, if circumstances change, you have to look at the sequencing of the big infrastructure cash that you spend.
“Any government that doesn’t do that, any opposition that claims you don’t need to is not fit to govern this country.”
But the expected announcement was slammed by Labour’s mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, who said people in the north of England were “always treated as second class citizens when it comes to transport”.
He told Sky News: “This was the parliament where they said they would level us up. If they leave a situation where the southern half of the country is connected by modern high speed lines and the north of England is left with Victorian infrastructure, that is a recipe for the north/south divide to become a north/south chasm over the rest of this century.
“That is why people here are fed up with false promises and also watching now what seems to be the desperate acts of a dying government. This is not right and not fair to people here who were given so many promises.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, attacked the decision to scrap the northern leg of the high speed rail line.
HS2 was first touted by Labour in 2009, but it was the coalition government that signed off the plan, designed to connected the South, Midlands and North of England with state of the art infrastructure.
Despite billions being poured into the project, it has been beset by delays and rising costs – with the eastern leg scrapped entirely and work between Birmingham and Crewe delayed due to the impact of inflation.
Some estimates have put the total cost at over £100bn, while the project has been rated “unachievable” by the infrastructure watchdog.
However, plans to scrap the northern leg have been criticised on all sides of the political spectrum.
Former Tory prime minister Boris Johnson called it “desperate” and “Treasury-driven nonsense”, while one of his predecessors, David Cameron, is said to have privately cautioned against it, with an ally telling the Times that HS2 was “a totemic Conservative pledge”.
The Bitcoin seized from former ICRF employee Marat Tambiev will be turned into Russian state revenue.
Philippine banks are collaborating to launch the PHPX stablecoin for real-time remittances, leveraging Hedera’s DLT network and cross-border payment solutions.
Harriet Harman has suggested a “mini inquiry” into issues raised by the grooming gangs scandal and called on Sir Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch to discuss “terms of reference”.
The Labour peer told Sky’s political editor Beth Rigby on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast that there should “openness” to a future probe as long it does not repeat the previous investigations.
In particular, she said people need to be “trained and confident” that they can take on matters “which are in particular communities” without being accused of being racist.
“I think that whether it’s a task force, whether it’s more action plans, whether it’s a a mini inquiry on this, this is something that we need to develop resilience in,” Ms Harman said.
The grooming gangs scandal is back in the spotlight after Elon Musk hit out at the Labour government for rejecting a new national inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham, saying this should be done at a local level instead.
The Tories also previously said an Oldham inquiry should be done locally and in 2015 commissioned a seven-year national inquiry into child sex abuse, led by Professor Alexis Jay, which looked at grooming gangs.
However, they didn’t implement any of its recommendations while in office – and Sir Keir has vowed to do so instead of launching a fresh investigation into the subject.
Ms Harman said she agreed with ministers that there is “no point” in a rerun of the £200m Jay Review, which came on top of a number of locally-led inquiries.
👉 Click here to follow Electoral Dysfunction wherever you get your podcasts 👈
Read More:
Grooming gangs are ‘in every single part of our country’, Jess Phillips says
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Grooming gangs: What happened?
However, she said there’s “always got to be an openness to further analysis, further consideration of what proposals would move things forward”.
She called on the Conservative Party to start “sensibly discussing with the government what should be the parameters of a future inquiry”, as they “can’t really be arguing they want an absolute repeat of the seven years and £200 million of the Jay inquiry”.
She said the Tories should set out their “terms of reference”, so “the government and everybody can discuss whether or not they’ve already got that sorted”.
Girls as young as 11 were groomed and raped across a number of towns in England – including Oldham, Rochdale, Rotherham and Telford – over a decade ago in a national scandal that was exposed in 2013.
In many cases the victims were white and the perpetrators of south Asian descent – with the local inquiry into Telford finding that exploitation was ignored because of unease about race.
The Jay review did not assess whether ethnicity was a factor in grooming gangs due to poor data, and recommended the compilation of a national core data base on child sex abuse which records the ethnicity of the victim and alleged perpetrator.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
PM: People ‘spreading lies’ are ‘not interested in victims’
Ms Harman’s comments come after the Labour Metro Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, said he believed there was a case for a new “limited national inquiry”.
He told the BBC that a defeated Tory vote on the matter was “opportunism”, but a new probe could “compel people to give evidence who then may have charges to answer and be held to account”.
Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister who has born the brunt of Mr Musk’s attacks, has told Sky News “nothing is off the table” when it comes to a new inquiry – but she will “listen to victims” and not the world’s richest man.
Sir Keir has said he spoke to victims this week and they do not want another inquiry as it would delay the implementations of the Jay review – though his spokesman later indicated one could take place if those affected call for it.
Tory leader Ms Badenoch has argued that the public will start to “worry about a cover-up” if the prime minister resists calls for a national inquiry, and said no one has yet “joined up the dots” on grooming.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports9 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway