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.
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?
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“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.
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“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.”
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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.
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”.
Campaigners have criticised a change to the rules around declarations of interest in the House of Lords as a “retrograde step” which will lead to a “significant loss of transparency”.
Since 2000, peers have had to register a list of “non-financial interests” – which includes declaring unpaid but often important roles like being a director, trustee, or chair of a company, think tank or charity.
But that requirement was dropped in April despite staff concerns.
Tom Brake, director of Unlock Democracy, and a former Liberal Democrat MP, wants to see the decision reversed.
“It’s a retrograde step,” he said. “I think we’ve got a significant loss of transparency and accountability and that is bad news for the public.
“More than 25 years ago, the Committee on Standards in Public Life identified that there was a need for peers to register non-financial interests because that could influence their decisions. I’m confused as to what’s happened in the last 25 years that now means this requirement can be scrapped.
“This process seems to be all about making matters simpler for peers, rather than what the code of conduct is supposed to do, which is to boost the public’s confidence.”
Image: MPs and peers alike have long faced scrutiny over their interests outside Westminster. File pic
Rules were too ‘burdensome’, say peers
The change was part of an overhaul of the code of conduct which aimed to “shorten and clarify” the rules for peers.
The House of Lords Conduct Committee argued that updating non-financial interests was “disproportionately burdensome” with “minor and inadvertent errors” causing “large numbers of complaints”.
As a result, the register of Lords interests shrunk in size from 432 pages to 275.
MPs have a different code of conduct, which requires them to declare any formal unpaid positions or other non-financial interests which may be an influence.
A source told Sky News there is real concern among some Lords’ staff about the implications of the change.
Non-financial interest declarations have previously highlighted cases where a peer’s involvement in a think tank or lobbying group overlapped with a paid role.
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Protesters disrupt House of Lords
Cricket legend among peers to breach code
There are also examples where a peer’s non-financial interest declaration has prompted an investigation – revealing a financial interest which should have been declared instead.
In 2023, Lord Skidelsky was found to have breached the code after registering his role as chair of a charity’s trustees as a non-financial interest.
Image: Lord Skidelsky. Pic: UK Parliament
The Commissioner for Standards investigated after questions were raised about the charity, the Centre for Global Studies.
He concluded that the charity – which was funded by two Russian businessmen – only existed to support Lord Skidelsky’s work, and had paid his staff’s salaries for over 12 years.
In 2021, Lord Botham – the England cricket legend – was found to have breached the code after registering a non-financial interest as an unpaid company director.
The company’s accounts subsequently revealed he and his wife had benefitted from a director’s loan of nearly £200,000. It was considered a minor breach and he apologised.
Image: Former cricketer Lord Botham. File pic: PA
‘Follow the money’
Lord Eric Pickles, the former chair of the anti-corruption watchdog, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, believes focusing on financial interests makes the register more transparent.
“My view is always to follow the money. Everything else on a register is camouflage,” he said.
“Restricting the register to financial reward will give peers little wriggle room. I know this is counterintuitive, but the less there is on the register, the more scrutiny there will be on the crucial things.”
Image: Lord Eric Pickles
‘I was shocked’
The SNP want the House of Lords to be scrapped, and has no peers of its own. Deputy Westminster leader Pete Wishart MP is deeply concerned by the changes.
“I was actually quite horrified and quite shocked,” he said.
“This is an institution that’s got no democratic accountability, it’s a job for life. If anything, members of the House of Lords should be regulated and judged by a higher standard than us in the House of Commons – and what’s happened is exactly the opposite.”
Image: Michelle Mone attends the state opening of parliament in 2019. Pic: Reuters
The government has pledged to reform the House of Lords and is currently trying to push through a bill abolishing the 92 remaining hereditary peers, which will return to the House of Commons in September.
But just before recess the bill was amended in the Lords so that they can remain as members until retirement or death. It’s a change which is unlikely to be supported by MPs.
Image: MPs and peers alike have long faced scrutiny over their interests outside Westminster. File pic
A spokesperson for the House of Lords said: “Maintaining public confidence in the House of Lords is a key objective of the code of conduct. To ensure that, the code includes rigorous rules requiring the registration and declaration of all relevant financial interests held by members of the House of Lords.
“Public confidence relies, above all, on transparency over the financial interests that may influence members’ conduct. This change helps ensure the rules regarding registration of interests are understandable, enforceable and focused on the key areas of public concern.
“Members may still declare non-financial interests in debate, where they consider them directly relevant, to inform the House and wider public.
“The Conduct Committee is appointed to review the code of conduct, and it will continue to keep all issues under review. During its review of the code of conduct, the committee considered written evidence from both Unlock Democracy and Transparency International UK, among others.”
Federico Carrone, a privacy-focused Ethereum core developer, confirmed that he has been released after being accused by Turkish authorities of aiding the “misuse” of an Ethereum privacy protocol.
In January, the Terraform Labs co-founder pleaded not guilty to several charges, including securities fraud, market manipulation, money laundering and wire fraud.