Former attorney general Sir Jeremy Wright said a high-speed line only from London to Birmingham would never have received sign-off from Parliament.
Transport Secretary Mark Harper said he would not be drawn on ‘speculation’ surrounding HS2’s future
HS2 was in 2015 given a £55.7 billion budget for its route from London to Birmingham with a Y-shaped section to Manchester and Leeds. But senior Tories have continued to lobby Downing Street over the project, with the rail debate likely to dominate the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, which starts on Sunday.
Mr Johnson said suggestions that the southern terminal could become Old Oak Common, a new station being built in the capital’s western suburbs, instead of Euston in central London would leave HS2 as a “white elephant, the vanity project to end all vanity projects”. Phase 1’s budget was set at £44.6 billion at 2019 prices, with recent increases in inflation likely to have taken that higher.
“My constituents are undergoing the pain now of the delivery of Phase 1 of HS2 and they have been told all the way through this project… that the significant local pain they will be suffering is justified by the significant national game that building a network of high speed rail lines will deliver.
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