More than £232m has been paid out in compensation to people affected by the now-scrapped northern leg of HS2, Sky News can reveal.

Responses to our Freedom of Information requests show just shy of £550m has been spent so far on a range of government compensation schemes for both residents and businesses impacted by the planned route between London and Manchester.

But more than 40% of the pot went to land and property owners in phase two of the project – starting at Birmingham and heading north – which was cancelled by the Conservatives at their 2023 party conference and will never be built.

A total of 2,446 successful applications for pay outs have been made across five schemes, but 53 are still yet to be settled – 10 years after compensation was first made available.

And with a current average payment of £242,555 per application, the next government could be looking at a further bill of almost £13m to meet the commitments.

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A spokesperson for HS2 Ltd said the “vast majority” of the remaining transactions for phase two had now been “placed on hold” following the cancellation of the leg, adding: “In most cases we are now only continuing with purchases that started before October – if the owner wishes to proceed.

“In line with government policy, we’re now in the process of closing down the phase two programme in an orderly fashion, while being mindful of the needs of local communities and the taxpayer.”

Sky News has contacted the Conservative Party for a response.

HS2 was first proposed under a Labour government in 2009 and adopted by the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition in 2010, with an expected price tag of £37.5bn.

But beset with delays and costs soaring north of £100bn, original plans began to be scaled back, and last year, the Conservative government announced it would be scrapping the line between Birmingham and Manchester entirely.

The decision was condemned by politicians on all sides – including the mayors of Birmingham and Manchester, who said they were treating people in the North and Midlands as “second class citizens”.

But ministers insisted the project no longer represented “value for money”, and the funding could be better spent on more localised transport plans.

What are the schemes – and how much has been paid?

There have been five compensation schemes in total for HS2.

The Express Purchase Scheme covers people whose whole house or 25% of their land falls into “safeguarded areas” – land HS2 plans or planned to build on – allowing them to sell their property to the government.

A total of 144 applications were accepted under this scheme, the majority of which – 136 – fell into phase two of the project.

But while the government has spent just over £900,000 settling four of the eight applications along the route for phase one, it has spent more than £34m on just 39 of the 136 settlements for phase two.

HS2 said 25 applications remained “active” or still to be paid out.

The Rural Support Zone Scheme sees those whose properties fall outside of the safeguarded area, but within 120m of the line, able to apply for either a cash offer or a voluntary purchase scheme from the government – with applications staying open until one year after the relevant phase of the railway is first open for public use.

The government has paid out almost £32m for 116 successful claims in phase one and close to £50m for 589 claims in phase two, but there are another 15 still to be settled.

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There was a further scheme for those whose property or 25% of their land fell within 300m of the line called the Homeowner Payment Scheme.

It gave one off payments to those in the zone, ranging from £7,000 for those at the furthest edge up to £24,000 for those closest to the 120m mark.

Close to £11.4m was given out across 834 claims covering phase one, while almost £1.7m was given out for 108 claims on phase two.

The Need to Sell Scheme was established for those who had a “compelling reason” to sell, such as losing their job and needing to relocate because of the line, while not falling within 300m of it.

A total of 199 applications were accepted for phase one and 189 for phase two, but while 332 of the applications have been paid out – costing over £181m for phase one and more than £85m for phase two – 13 are yet to complete.

The final compensation scheme was introduced in the earlier planning days of HS2 under the coalition government – the Exceptional Hardship Scheme.

This allowed homeowners and small businesses who could prove they had an urgent need to sell because their property value could be affected by the initial preferred route of HS2 to make a claim.

Of the 161 legitimate claims on phase one, 147 offers have been paid out, costing close to £91.7m.

All of the claims for the now defunct phase two have also been paid – a total of 97 at a cost of over £61.2m.

Joe Biden has said he “nearly fell asleep” during last week’s first presidential debate and put his poor performance down to travel exhaustion after going “around the world a couple of times” shortly before it.

The US president, 81, said he “wasn’t very smart” for having travelled extensively in the weeks leading up to the event in Atlanta, where he performed so poorly that friends and foes alike have told him to quit the race for the White House.

Mr Biden told supporters at a campaign event in Virginia on Tuesday: “I decided to travel around the world a couple times, going through around 100 time zones.”

He added he “didn’t listen” to his staff, “came back and nearly fell asleep on stage”.

“That’s no excuse but it is an explanation,” he added while admitting: “I didn’t have my best night.”

The Biden campaign doesn’t allow media outlets to film fundraisers, so it wasn’t immediately clear whether he was joking, NBC, Sky News’ US partner said.

The president visited France and Italy during two separate trips in the space of two weeks last month, flying overnight from the G7 summit in Bari to appear at a fundraiser with former president Barack Obama in Los Angeles on 15 June before returning to Washington the following day.

However, he then spent six days at Camp David preparing for Thursday’s contest against presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump.

But there was little sign of preparation as the Democrat candidate paused and stumbled his way through a gruelling TV debate in a performance dismissed as an “unmitigated disaster” by some in his own party.

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White House officials have blamed his halting showing on a cold, but Mr Biden did not mention illness.

In contrast, the 78-year-old Trump, who has long said Mr Biden is too old for another term, appeared vigorous and lucid, albeit while repeating what critics have said are oft-repeated false claims.

Meanwhile, calls are growing from prominent Democrats for Mr Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race.

Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat member of Congress representing Texas, said in a statement: “Our overriding consideration must be who has the best hope of saving our democracy from an authoritarian takeover by a criminal and his gang. Too much is at stake to risk a Trump victory.”

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Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also told MSNBC that she believes “it is a legitimate question” whether Mr Biden’s performance was just “an episode or is this a condition”.

She said: “When people ask that question, it’s legitimate – of both candidates.”

However, a spokesman later said Mrs Pelosi had full confidence in Mr Biden and “looks forward to attending his inauguration on 20 January 2025”.

It comes as a poll published on Tuesday showed that one in three Democrats think Mr Biden should end his re-election bid following the debate.

But the research by Reuters/Ipsos also suggested the Democrats would be unlikely to do much better if they changed their candidate and Mr Biden has said he will not quit.

The two-day poll found that both he and Trump have the backing of around 40% of registered voters, meaning the president may not have lost ground since the debate, despite the negative reaction.

He’s still got it. Boris Johnson may have left it late before coming to the party – the Conservative Party, that is – but his 11th-hour rallying cry to the Tory faithful was vintage Boris and just like the old days.

It was the kind of shambolic, chaotic but barnstorming box office performance that he used to give at packed Tory conference fringe meetings when he was the king over the water and greeted like a rock star by his adoring fans.

Back then he used to upstage and humiliate David Cameron and then Theresa May.

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This time his victim was Rishi Sunak, who Mr Johnson’s cheerleaders accuse of knifing him in the back and leading the charge to oust him.

Et tu, Brute? More like Et tu, Boris. As well as answering the call in the Tories’ hour of need, he’d clearly come to settle some old scores, defend his record and remind the Tory faithful he hasn’t gone away.

And he certainly did all of those.

But while Tory activists who turned out at nearly 10pm adore him, is he still a vote winner? Or for undecided voters, is he a reminder of partygate, sleaze and Tory chaos?

But he was there on his terms, as he made clear.

Mr Johnson made a point of beginning his speech, from scribbled notes on crumpled paper, by saying he’d been asked to speak at this rally.

In other words, Mr Sunak had begged him to come to his rescue at the end of a disastrous Tory election campaign. He wasn’t going to offer. He wanted Mr Sunak to grovel and beg.

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There wasn’t a word of praise for Mr Sunak in his speech. No handshake, either.

There may have been other speakers – first Michael Gove and later Mr Sunak – but this was the Boris show and a one-man show.

Although the PM made perhaps his most punchy speech of the campaign when he spoke after him – why leave it so late? It was Mr Johnson who was the star of the show, topping the bill, obviously, and had the Tory faithful screaming his name.

‘Past Starmer’s bedtime’

After a warm-up speech by Mr Gove and then a low-key announcement which seemed to take the audience by surprise, the star turn shuffled on to the stage in an ill-fitting suit, hair unkempt and uncut for weeks and considerably heavier than in his Number 10 days.

When did he last visit a barber?

He always messes up his unruly mop of blond hair before a speech. All part of the act. The late Ken Dodd used to do that. Fans would say Boris the comedian is just as funny as the man from Knotty Ash.

What a mess he looked, though. Not that the audience cared. They chanted “Boris! Boris!” just like they did when he was the darling of the conference fringe.

He began – predictably – with a gag at Sir Keir Starmer‘s expense, the man he used to call “Captain Crasheroonie Snoozefest” at prime minister’s questions.

He thanked the audience “for coming so late tonight to this venue, way past Sir Keir Starmer’s bedtime”. Boom, boom! The Labour leader will have to live with jokes about his 6pm Friday curfew for some time.

“I was glad when Rishi asked me to help,” he claimed. “Of course I couldn’t say no.”

Well, probably not. But those Red Wall Tories now facing defeat on Thursday will have wished he’d answered the call a lot earlier in the campaign.

Turning on Farage

We got the usual Johnson defence of his handling of the pandemic and the roll-out of the vaccines. And he boasted several times, not surprisingly: “We got Brexit done.” It was “a proper Brexit”, he said, a “Brexit government”.

Maybe. The audience loved all that, but why are so many Tories turning to Reform UK if it was such a triumph?

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Next, Sir Keir was ridiculed as “Jeremy Corbyn’s disciple” and accused of “taking EU law by dictation” and “poor old Starmer” was “reluctant to explain the difference between a man and a woman”, he claimed.

Then he turned on Nigel Farage, something Mr Sunak and his senior ministers should have done weeks ago.

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Reform UK was “full of Kremlin crawlers” and Putin’s “pet parrots”, he said. “Shame on them!” he declared, to wild applause.

And then a typical Johnson gag: “Don’t let the Putinistas deliver the Corbynistas!”

Vintage, yes. Funny, naturally. A great showman, definitely.

But is he still an asset, when so many voters appear to want to punish the Conservatives for his time in Downing Street rather than blame Mr Sunak for Tory failures?

Whatever voters think of Boris Johnson, his last-minute cameo has almost certainly come too late to save the Conservatives from the heavy defeat the polls are predicting.