Can HS2 get back on track?

A great "will he, won't he" of British politics rumbled on today after Rishi Sunak repeatedly refused to say if the northern leg of HS2 will be scrapped.

Asked on "BBC Breakfast" whether he was set to axe the planned line from Birmingham to Manchester, the prime minister failed to give a direct answer six times. Sunak insisted that he had “absolutely not” given up on the multibillion pound rail scheme but that he was "not going to be forced into a premature decision because it’s good for someone’s TV programme".

Speculation has been rife since a Treasury official arriving at No. 10 for a "super-secret meeting" three weeks ago accidentally "flashed" briefing notes suggesting HS2 was under review, said the BBC's chief political correspondent Harry Zeffman. As MPs and the party faithful gathered in Manchester for the Conservative Party Conference on Monday, fresh reports emerged that the second phase of the project was being ditched. 

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

 The yet-to-be-confirmed news – which broke moments before Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's flagship speech – "could not be more disruptive", said Sky News's deputy political editor Sam Coates.

What did the papers say?

"It's probably safe to assume that there wasn't a grand plan in Downing Street for the Conservative Party conference to become overwhelmed by speculation about HS2," wrote the BBC's Zeffman. But "make no mistake: that is what's happened".

The prime minister's great re-set has been completely overshadowed by the row, which has "sparked fury" among northern business leaders and politicians including the "most senior Tory outside Westminster", West Midlands Mayor Andy Street, reported The Independent.

Street called an impromptu press conference on Monday night at which he urged the PM not to "cancel the future" and refused to rule out resigning over the matter. Framing the decision in terms of a "once-in-a-generation opportunity to level up", Street suggested that major businesses could be brought in to invest in the scheme.

This idea has also been floated by Boris Johnson. In his Daily Mail column last week, the former Tory leader argued that failing to save the project by securing private financing or any other means would be "betraying the North of the country and the whole agenda of levelling up".

He added: "Cancel HS2? Cut off the northern legs? We must be out of our minds."

What next?

Sunak was expected to convene an emergency cabinet meeting in Manchester later today to sign off his HS2 decision ahead of his conference speech on Wednesday.

According to The Times, the PM will pledge to invest "every penny" saved from scrapping the northern leg – an estimated £36 billion – into regional road and rail schemes. "But much of this money is not scheduled to be spent until the 2030s," said the paper, "limiting Sunak’s room for immediate giveaways." 

The PM's expected announcement will, at least, afford him "an opportunity for his voice, finally, to become the loudest" at the Tory conference, said the BBC's Zeffman. Once Sunak has revealed "what investments the government might be making instead in transport links within the North, the discussion will move onto those specifics rather than the communications difficulties the Conservatives have had on this subject".

Sunak's supporters "will be hoping that the uncertainties of recent days aren't what lingers in the public's memory", Zeffman added.

The HS2 decision "speaks to the policy merry-go-round of recent years and the failure of the British state to complete large projects", said Freddie Hayward in The New Statesman, but the "political damage will partly depend on Labour’s response".

Jon Stone argued in The Independent that "it is difficult to see how Labour could fail to build HS2 without declaring open warfare on its city and regional mayors, including Andy Burnham, Tracy Brabin and Sadiq Khan – who all want the network to be completed".

Yet while Labour will also "want to create a dividing line" with Sunak's Tories, Keir Starmer's probable chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will face "many of the same cost pressures as the current government, and has so far committed to very similar spending plans".

And if Labour struggle to find the billions needed for HS2, concluded Hayward, "consensus between the two parties could see the issue eventually laid to rest".