‘ Terrible signal’ to world if HS2 was cancelled
CANCELLING HS2 would send a “terrible signal” to the world about the UK’s plans to recover from the pandemic and would have a “chilling impact” on investment, the Minister responsible for the scheme has warned.
High speed rail Minister Andrew Stephenson defended the controversial project linking London with the Midlands and North amid fears the Yorkshire leg of the scheme may not be delivered in full.
And giving evidence to the Commons Transport Committee, he said the fundamental case for the high speed rail scheme still stood despite the pandemic dramatically changing travel habits.
One member of the committee, Greg Smith, a Conservative MP for Buckingham, said there was a petition circulating about HS2 and “gaining a lot of traction” and predicted there would be a Parliamentary debate about the viability of the scheme. Asking what the cost would be to the country of stopping HS2, he said: “All opinion polling we’ve seen shows there to be a lot of hostility to this project.”
Mr Stephenson said the most immediate impact of cancelling HS2 would be the loss of 13,000 jobs directly employed by HS2 and tens of thousandsmoreinthesupplychain. And he said around 50 per cent of
the estimated cost of phase one of the project, linking London with the Midlands, had already been spent or contracted. He said: “So if we were to scrap this, it’s not clear how much of it would be recoverable or whether these assets could be sold obviously there’s been a significant amount of land bought.
“But I think at a time when we’re going through global turmoil it would send a terrible signal out globally about the UK intending to build back better from Covid.
“If the first reaction to the pandemic is to cancel major infrastructure projects which have been talked about and committed to by successive governments now for more than a decade, if that was our reaction I think that would have a chilling impact on the construction sector in the UK and inward investment.
“So it’s hard to quantify the exact cost of stopping the programme now but it’s certainly something I would very strongly advise against.”
The future of HS2 has been the subject of fierce debate due to its rising costs and environmental impact, though in February Boris Johnson committed to building the route in full following the findings of the Government’s Oakervee review.
In recent weeks further fears have emerged over the Leeds leg of the scheme after a report from the National Infrastructure Commission recommended concentrating on regional links.
Mr Stephenson was asked what modelling had been done about demand for the scheme due to the pandemic, during which levels of public transport use plummeted.
The Integrated Rail Plan setting out the Government’s plans for major infrastructure projects was supposed to be published last year but has been delayed.