Rishi Sunak confirms northern leg of HS2 will be scrapped

Watch Rishi Sunak confirms northern leg of HS2 will be scrapped - inews on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00 This will be our priority, our focus, our project.

00:04 HS2 is the ultimate example of the old consensus.

00:10 The result is a project whose costs have more than doubled,

00:16 which has been repeatedly delayed,

00:18 and it is not scheduled to reach here in Manchester

00:21 for almost two decades,

00:23 and for which the economic case has massively been weakened

00:27 with the changes to business travel post-COVID.

00:30 I say to those who backed the project in the first place,

00:34 the facts have changed,

00:37 and the right thing to do when the facts change

00:39 is to have the courage to change direction.

00:42 (audience applauding)

00:56 And so I am ending this long-running saga.

01:00 I am cancelling the rest of the HS2 project,

01:04 and in its place,

01:05 and in its place, we will reinvest every single penny,

01:12 £36 billion in hundreds of new transport projects

01:19 in the North and the Midlands across the country.

01:23 This means £36 billion of investment

01:26 in the project that will make a real difference across.