Ex-minister calls for inquiry into HS2 as he warns of ‘disastrous’ consequences if northern leg is scrapped
A former transport minister who signed off HS2 has told Sky News he wants an inquiry into the chaos of the project “to make sure it doesn’t happen again”.
The northern leg of the high speed rail line – set to run between Birmingham and Manchester – appears to be under threat amid reports the prime minister and chancellor are holding discussions this week on its future due to soaring costs.
Politics Live: Downing Street repeatedly refuses to comment on HS2
Rishi Sunak earlier declined to back building HS2 to the North in the face of warnings by senior Tories not to axe the rail project, hitting out at the “speculation” surrounding its future, but doing nothing to quell fears just ahead of the Conservative Party’s conference.
Former chancellor George Osborne and ex-Conservative deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine were among those saying cutting the Manchester route would be a “gross act of vandalism” and would mean “abandoning” the North and Midlands.
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Rishi Sunak on HS2 ‘speculation’
Norman Baker – a former Liberal Democrat MP who worked as a transport minister in the coalition years – said Mr Sunak had an “anti-rail mindset”, and the rumoured scrapping of the northern leg of the line would be “disastrous”.
Speaking to Sky News at the Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth, he said: “Let’s be quite clear about this. If HS2 is cancelled, it’s not simply a question of inconvenience to passengers.
“There’s going to be job losses in the rail industry. And it’s going to be massive reputational damage to this country.
“People are going to say, what on earth are you doing? You’re cancelling your environmental policies, you’re pulling out of the European Union, you can’t build a railway. Just what is happening with Britain these days?”
Norman Baker was a transport minister for the Lib Dems during the coalition.
Mr Baker – who now works at the Campaign for Better Transport – said people wanted “more HS2, not less HS2”, but criticised the project for being “very badly handled”.
He added: “It’s been hugely expensive. It’s been out of control financially. And we need to have in conjunction with HS2 going head to Manchester and indeed to Leeds as well, we have a proper inquiry as to understand why this has happened and to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
However, the Lib Dems’ transport spokesperson in the Lords, Baroness Randerson, had concerns an inquiry would cause further delays.
Committing her party to the “full” HS2 project, the peer told Sky News: “Every time the government changes its mind, every time the government trims a few hundred yards, a mile or two off, one end or the other, they are pushing up the cost per mile and they are fatally undermining the economic arguments for it, the economic impetus for it, and its potential economic success.
“If you keep chopping and changing, playing the ‘hokey cokey’, as someone put it… then you are going to put in uncertainty, you’re going to drive up the costs and people are going to lose their mission on it.”
Baroness Randerson committed her party to HS2 in “full”.
But instead of an inquiry, she called for a “complete review”, adding: “It needs to be reinstated at the heart of government transport strategy, and then it will serve the north of England in the way it was intended to do, to level up.
“I don’t think we need anything that will impede its progress. We need to get on with it. But what we do, what we do need to do, for the sake of any future project, we need to make sure these mistakes aren’t made again because we have to have consistency.
“We are the nation that invented the railways. Now, 200 or so years on from that and we seem incapable of building a modern railway.”
Read more:
What is HS2 and why are parts being delayed?
Why are so many people upset with rail project?
HS2 was first touted by Labour in 2009, but it was the coalition government that signed off the plan, designed to connect the south, the Midlands and the North of England with state-of-the-art infrastructure.
If the Manchester leg is axed it would be the latest watering down of the project, with the eastern leg to Leeds 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.
Pushed on the rumours during a visit to a community centre in Hertfordshire on Monday, Mr Sunak said: “We’re absolutely committed to levelling up and spreading opportunity around the country, not just in the North but in the Midlands, in all other regions of our fantastic country.”
He said that transport is “key” to that vision, “not just big rail projects, but also local projects, improving local bus services, fixing pot holes”.
Pressed for a yes or no answer over whether the northern leg would go ahead, Mr Sunak said: “This kind of speculation that people are making is not right. We’ve got spades in the ground, we’re getting on and delivering.
“Downing Street made clear that he was hitting out at the nature of the speculation, rather than suggesting any of it was incorrect.”
Number 10 refused to provide further details but said there is precedent to delaying aspects of the high speed rail scheme because of “affordability pressures”, pointing towards high inflation.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said that Mr Sunak “always listens to both sides of debate, and it’s for him to make final decisions”.
The uncertainty has fuelled anger among leaders in Manchester, who have sent an “urgent” letter to Mr Sunak warning “the North of England should not have to pay for the government’s mismanagement of the HS2 budget”.
Manchester’s Labour Mayor Andy Burnham and the city council leader Cllr Bev Craig are requesting a meeting with the prime minister as a “courtesy” before a decision is taken, in which they will state “in the strongest possible terms that HS2 should not be scrapped”.
New Hampshire became the first US state to allow its government to invest in crypto currencies including Bitcoin (BTC), after Governor Kelly Ayotte signed a bill passed by the legislature into law.
In a May 6 notice, Ayotte announced on social media that New Hampshire would be permitted to “invest in cryptocurrency and precious metals” through a bill passed in the state Senate and House of Representatives. House Bill 302, introduced in New Hampshire in January, will allow the state’s treasury to use funds to invest in cryptocurrencies with a market capitalization of more than $500 billion, eliminating many tokens and memecoins.
“The Live Free or Die state is leading the way in forging the future of commerce and digital assets,” said New Hampshire Republicans in a May 6 X post.
With the signing of the bill into law, New Hampshire becomes the first of several US states considering passing legislation to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve, including an initiative with the federal government. A similar bill in Arizona passed the state’s House in April but was vetoed by Governor Katie Hobbs on May 2, and Florida’s government withdrew two crypto reserve bills from consideration on May 3.
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The efforts to create crypto reserves in different US states come as US President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers propose similar policies at the federal level. Trump signed an executive order in March to establish a “Digital Asset Stockpile” and a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.”
Senator Cynthia Lummis, who sponsored the Boosting Innovation, Technology, and Competitiveness through Optimized Investment Nationwide (BITCOIN) Act, proposed that the US government could hold more than 1 million BTC through civil and criminal forfeiture seizures. The bill is currently being considered by members of the US Senate Banking Committee.
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A group of crypto traders reportedly purchased millions of dollars worth of Melania Trump’s memecoins minutes before she announced the launch on social media.
According to a May 6 Financial Times report, the crypto traders earned roughly $100 million from buying $2.6 million worth of MELANIA tokens before the public launch on Jan. 19. Shortly after Trump announced the memecoin launch on social media, the price surged from roughly $2.00 to $12.95 — a 550% increase. The traders reportedly sold their holdings within 12 hours.
“In total, the 24 accounts bought up 16.7mn of the 200mn total $MELANIA tokens scheduled for sale during the launch period,” the Financial Times reported. “[…] the run of sales that started pre-launch continued. About $900,000 worth of tokens bought by an additional 22 accounts in the 42 seconds after the launch.”
The memecoin started trading roughly two days after then-president-elect Donald Trump announced the launch of his own TRUMP coin. Both tokens have come under scrutiny from lawmakers, alleging conflicts of interest and corruption due to the potential for bribery and foreign influence.
Memecoin dinner prompts call for impeachment
Much of the scrutiny and criticism from US lawmakers over the memecoins seems to be directed at the president rather than the first lady. After Trump announced some of the top TRUMP tokenholders would be offeried the chance to get access to him at a private dinner and tour, one senator called for his impeachment.
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Both the prices of the MELANIA and TRUMP tokens have dropped significantly since shortly after their launch in January, with the First Lady’s memecoin falling to $0.31 at the time of publication. The TRUMP token price briefly surged after the memecoin dinner announcement in April, but had dropped to $10.90 as of May 6.
Two companies connected to the president control roughly 80% of the TRUMP supply, though many of the tokens were locked and will be released over the next three years. Critics have suggested that the project’s insiders could still rug-pull investors.
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21Shares has launched an exchange traded product (ETP) in Europe, providing investors with exposure to Crypto.com’s Cronos token, the asset manager said.
The ETP is listed on Euronext’s Paris and Amsterdam exchanges, 21Shares said in a May 6 announcement.
Cronos (CRO) is a layer-1 blockchain network affiliated with Crypto.com, a centralized exchange.
The chain is designed to integrate with the Ethereum and Cosmos ecosystems and support “decentralised finance (DeFi), NFTs, and Web3 applications,” 21Shares said.
The ETP aims to provide investors with a “straightforward way to integrate CRO into their portfolios through traditional banks and brokers, eliminating the need to directly handle digital wallets or exchanges,” 21Shares said.
“By launching a Cronos ETP, we are offering investors […] regulated exposure to a blockchain ecosystem that is driving real-world adoption,” Mandy Chiu, 21Shares’ head of financial products development, said in a statement.
Related: Standard Chartered sees BNB more than doubling in 2025
The CRO token has a market capitalization of approximately $2.3 billion and a fully diluted value (FDV) of nearly $8.7 billion, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
Cronos has a total value locked (TVL) of approximately $400 million, according to data from DeFiLlama.
Its DeFi ecosystem includes Crypto.com’s liquid Ether staking token, Crypto.com Staked ETH, which has nearly $64 million in TVL, the data shows.
Altcoin ETFs abound
On May 5, asset manager VanEck filed to list an exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the US tied to yet another exchange-affiliated token.
The VanEck BNB ETF is the first proposed ETF in the US holding BNB Chain’s native token, BNB. The chain is affiliated with Binance, the world’s largest centralized exchange.
In the US, 21Shares has proposed ETFs holding cryptocurrencies including Dogecoin (DOGE), Polkadot (DOT), and Solana (SOL).
Asset managers are seeking the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) permission to list upward of 70 cryptocurrency ETFs.
The wave of filings has come as a result of US President Donald Trump softening the SEC’s regulatory posture toward crypto after taking office in January.
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