HS2: Government refuses to guarantee Manchester branch

The government has refused to guarantee the future of the HS2 rail line between Birmingham and Manchester.

A Downing Street spokesperson instead suggested that ministers would need to balance the interests of "passengers and taxpayers".

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt met on Wednesday and discussed the HS2 project.

Their primary concerns are said to be over spiralling costs and delays to the project.

"Spades are already in the ground on our HS2 programme and we're focused on delivering it," the prime minister's official spokesman said.

Asked whether Mr Sunak was committed to the line going to Manchester, the spokesman did not confirm whether it would, saying: "We are committed to HS2, to the project."

However, No 10 did confirm that ministers were looking at "rephasing" the project, hinting at a possible delay.

Speculation over the scheme's future resurfaced this week after The Independent carried a photograph of a document with details of a "savings table" of the costs of each part of the scheme north of Birmingham.

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said: "Why should it be the North of England that pays the price?

"What we are going to end up with here is in the southern half of the country, a modern, high-speed rail network, and the northern half of the country left with crumbling Victorian infrastructure. That won't level us up, it will do the exact opposite."

HS2 has been somewhat symbolic for the government's levelling-up agenda and has been seen in recent years as an important way to help bridge economic regional disparities.

In March, Transport Secretary Mark Harper announced that work on a new station at London Euston would be pushed back by two years because of rising costs.

At the same time, the government said the section between Birmingham and Crewe would be delayed by two years, to spread out spending.

Costs around HS2 have increased significantly and are now well above its original budget of £33bn, which was set a decade ago when work on the line began.

It was originally planned for HS2 to run between London and Birmingham before splitting into two sections to Manchester and Leeds.

But two years ago, plans for the eastern leg from Birmingham to Leeds were cut back, so the new line would stop at the East Midlands.

A spokesperson for the High Speed Rail Group said scrapping phase two would be a "disaster" for the North of England and the Midlands and the "ultimate U-turn".

He added: "The government needs to kill the speculation and make its intentions clear, and it ought to commit clearly and unambiguously to delivering the project as planned.

"The 30,000 people delivering HS2 deserve this. Our future generations deserve this. The North and Midlands deserve this."

Henri Murison, chief executive from the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, told the BBC's Today programme that scrapping the Manchester leg would be "political betrayal" and "economically illiterate".

"This isn't just about changing the way that people might be able to get to London or to Birmingham, this fundamentally rips up the entire basis of the commitments that Rishi Sunak as chancellor made to the north of England," he said.

"What do we say to all those inward investors who have come to Manchester… that the government would promised them that they would build HS2?," he added.

"They came and invested money, we then promised that we would build Northern Powerhouse Rail, they invest more money, and now their private sector investment has been significantly undermined and its long-term benefit because of something the government is doing."