Transport secretary to look at HS2 revival plans with ‘open mind’

Published

2 years ago

January 24, 2024

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Transport Secretary Mark Harper has said he will look at plans to revive the northern section of HS2 through private investment with “an open mind”.

Speaking at a Conservative Home conference in central London, the minister said he and Rishi Sunak had given a “commitment” to the Tory mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, to examine any proposal he brought forward – after the government decided last year to scrap the leg between Birmingham and Manchester.

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Mr Harper confirmed that Mr Street and Labour’s mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, had now commissioned a study into how it could be done through partnerships with business, following reports over the weekend.

And while the transport secretary said he was “somewhat sceptical” about whether the private sector could take on the project without cash from the public purse, he promised to meet the two regional leaders, adding: “I will listen to them.”

The prime minister announced his plan to axe the northern leg of HS2 during the Conservative Party conference in 2023, saying the “economic case” for the line had “massively weakened with the changes to business travel post-COVID”.

But he was met with fierce opposition from both Mr Street and Mr Burnham, with the latter accusing the government of treating people in the north of England as “second-class citizens”.

Rail minister Huw Merriman was also at Tuesday’s event, and asked by Sky News if he was as “openminded” to the private investment plan as Mr Harper, he said: “As a Conservative, I always welcome private sector investment in the railway.”

However, in what appeared to be a warning to the mayors, he added: “Our plan is clear. They might have something else they want to actually bring forward, we will see what it is, that’s their proposal.

“Our plan is we are not taking HS2 further north. Eventually, we will then look to sell that land off, so we’ll need to make sure… there is no overlap on what other people [want] to do themselves.

“That is our plan, then we are going to invest in all these projects across the North and the Midlands that I just think ultimately will deliver more regional growth to every part of the country that needs it.”

When Mr Sunak made the announcement to scrap HS2 in October, he insisted “every single penny” of the £36bn being saved would be spent on “hundreds of new transport projects in the North and the Midlands, and across the country” – launching his flagship Network North project to collate the schemes.

But rather than just public transport plans, Mr Harper today confirmed £8.3bn of those savings would be focused on road improvement schemes.

Asked by Sky News if it was right to divert HS2 cash from rail projects to roads, Mr Harper said: “We are rebalancing a little where we spend the money.

“Sixty percent of the journeys people make are by car, 4% of journeys that are made are by bus and 2% of journeys that are made are by train.

“So I think spending a third of the total transport budget on one train line was disproportionate. So what we are doing is rebalancing that funding.”

Pushed again on how it would encourage more people back on to public transport – a goal Mr Harper reiterated today – he told Sky News: “We are still spending a significant amount of the £36bn we have saved from HS2 on rail but we are spending some of it on improving our roads, enabling people to use buses.

“I think that is the right balance – more projects delivering more quickly for more people across the entire country.

“I just think we have rebalanced the transport spending better – still supporting public transport, still encouraging active travel, but also recognising most people use roads and we should put a significant investment into that as well.”

Rail minister Mr Merriman backed the transport secretary – despite earlier telling the conference rail was the “green, clean way to get around” and younger people were not taking up driving licences in the same numbers “because they see the train as their mode of transport”.

He told Sky News: “We need our roads. And the fact is, if I cycle on the roads at the moment – or even driving the couple of miles to my station – then I am afraid to say the potholes are so vast.

“It is a series of ‘s’ bends and it is really dangerous because people are just avoiding them.

“I absolutely understand the need to take some of that money and put it across [roads]. But the important thing is it is all being spent on transport and everything should feed into each other as a system.”

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The three key questions about the China spy case that need to be answered

Published

6 hours ago

October 16, 2025

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The three key questions about the China spy case that need to be answered

The government has published witness statements submitted by a senior official connected to the collapse of a trial involving two men accused of spying for China.

Here are three big questions that flow from them:

1. Why weren’t these statements enough for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to carry on with the trial?

For this prosecution to go ahead, the CPS needed evidence that China was a “threat to national security”.

The deputy national security adviser Matthew Collins doesn’t explicitly use this form of words in his evidence. But he comes pretty close.

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In the February 2025 witness statement, he calls China “the biggest state-based threat to the UK’s economic security”.

Six months later, he says China’s espionage operations “harm the interests and security of the UK”.

Yes, he does quote the language of the Tory government at the time of the alleged offences, naming China as an “epoch-defining and systemic challenge”.

But he also provides examples of malicious cyber activity and the targeting of individuals in government during the two-year period that the alleged Chinese spies are said to have been operating.

In short, you can see why some MPs and ex-security chiefs are wondering why this wasn’t enough.

Former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove told Sky News this morning that “it seems to be there was enough” and added that the CPS could have called other witnesses – such as sitting intelligence directors – to back up the claim that China was a threat.

Expect the current director of public prosecutions (DPP) Stephen Parkinson to be called before MPs to answer all these questions.

2. Why didn’t the government give the CPS the extra evidence it needed?

The DPP, Stephen Parkinson, spoke to senior MPs yesterday and apparently told them he had 95% of the evidence he needed to bring the case.

The government has said it’s for the DPP to explain what that extra 5% was.

He’s already said the missing link was that he needed evidence to show China was a “threat to national security”, and the government did not give him that.

The newly published witness statements show they came close.

But if what was needed was that explicit form of words, why was the government reticent to jump through that hoop?

The defence from ministers is that the previous Conservative administration defined China as a “challenge”, rather than a “threat” (despite the numerous examples from the time of China being a threat).

The attack from the Tories is that Labour is seeking closer economic ties with China and so didn’t want to brand them an explicit threat.

3. Why do these statements contain current Labour policy?

Sir Keir Starmer says the key reason for the collapse of this trial is the position held by the previous Tory government on China.

But the witness statements from Matthew Collins do contain explicit references to current Labour policy. The most eye-catching is the final paragraph of the third witness statement provided by the Deputy National Security Adviser, where he quotes directly from Labour’s 2024 manifesto.

He writes: “It is important for me to emphasise… the government’s position is that we will co-operate where we can; compete where we need to; and challenge where we must, including on issues of national security.”

Did these warmer words towards China influence the DPP’s decision to drop the case?

Why did Matthew Collins feel it so important to include this statement?

Was he simply covering his back by inserting the current government’s approach, or was he instructed to put this section in?

A complicated relationship

Everyone agrees that the UK-China relationship is a complicated one.

There is ample evidence to suggest that China poses a threat to the UK’s national security. But that doesn’t mean the government here shouldn’t try and work with the country economically and on issues like climate change.

It appears the multi-faceted nature of these links struggled to fit the legal specificity required to bring a successful prosecution.

But there are still plenty of questions about why the government and the CPS weren’t able or willing to do more to square these circles.

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Trump’s second term fuels a $1B crypto fortune for his family: Report

Published

7 hours ago

October 16, 2025

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Trump’s second term fuels a B crypto fortune for his family: Report

The Trump family’s crypto ventures have generated over $1 billion in profit, led by World Liberty Financial and memecoins including TRUMP and MELANIA.

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SEC chair: US is 10 years behind on crypto, fixing this is ‘job one’

Published

8 hours ago

October 16, 2025

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SEC chair: US is 10 years behind on crypto, fixing this is ‘job one’

SEC Chair Paul Atkins said the US is a decade behind on crypto and that building a regulatory framework to attract innovation is “job one” for the agency.