‘Great train robbery’: Labour outrage at government cuts to HS2
Labour has labelled the government’s decision to cut the eastern leg of HS2, which would have connected Birmingham to Leeds, a “great train robbery”.
Transport secretary Grant Shapps confirmed today, after a series of press stories this week, that the eastern leg of the high speed rail line will instead go from Birmingham to near Nottingham.
An entirely new line linking Manchester to Leeds, known as Northern Powerhouse Rail, was also scrapped in favour of upgrading current rail links between the two major cities.
Shapps argued the changes made to the £100bn package “will bring benefits at least a decade or more earlier” and that they will “achieve the same, similar or faster journey times to London on the core network than the original proposals”.
It has been widely suggested that the new plans were pushed by chancellor Rishi Sunak as a way to cut the cost of the project.
Labour shadow transport secretary Jim McMahon said the North was being “sold out”.
“There’s no amount of gloss, no amount of spin that can be put on this. He promised HS2 to Leeds, he promised Northern Powerhouse Rail, he promised the North wouldn’t be forgotten,” McMahon said.
“We were promised a northern powerhouse, we were promised a Midlands engine … but what we’ve been given today is the great train robbery, robbing the North of its chance to realise its full potential.”
Boris Johnson had promised on numerous occasions that he would build the entirety of HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail, including in the 2019 election.
Tory MP, and transport committee chair, Huw Merriman told MPs that the new plans revealed “the danger of selling perpetual sunlight and leaving it to others to explain the moonlight”.
Shapps said: “Clearly a rethink was needed so the project would deliver for the regions that it served as soon as possible.
“After decades of decline, with constrained capacity and poor reliability, finally this plan will give passengers in the North and the Midlands the services they need and deserve.”
The new plans will see rail journey times from London to other cities in the Midlands and the North slashed, however in several occasions it will take longer than envisioned under the original HS2 plans.
London to Leeds will take 113 minutes under the new plans, instead of the 81 minutes initially promised.
London to Newcastle will be 148 minutes instead of 137.