Pat McFadden, Labour shadow Cabinet Office minister, has refused to commit to the entire HS2 route all the way to Manchester, echoing the government position earlier this week
Speaking on the BBC’s Laura Keunssberg show this morning McFadden asked whether Labour was still committed to completing the “full original route” of the scheme
He replied: “I want to see what this costs and we’ll make those decisions when it comes to the manifesto”
Labour’s national policy forum statement from Friday promised to keep a promise to deliver “Northern Powerhouse Rail and High Speed 2 in full”
The interview followed the news earlier this week that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are in talks over shelving the second stage of HS2 according to reports
A cost estimate, seen by The Independent, reveals that the government has already spent £2.3bn on stage two of the high-speed railway from Birmingham to Manchester but shelving the northern phase would save up to £34bn.
According to the report “The documents, discussed at a meeting at No 10 on Tuesday headlined “chancellor and prime minister bilat”, suggest the £2.3bn is now not recoverable even if it is cancelled.
A Prime Minister’s spokesman asked numerous times whether the government was committed to the route, said that spades are already in the ground on our HS2 programme and we’re focused on delivering it.” However he wouldn’t promise the line would reach Manchester.
