Rishi Sunak is facing a backlash from Tories, businesses and northern leaders over an announcement to save billions of pounds by axing 'HS2 north'.
The Prime Minister is expected to hold an emergency Cabinet meeting to sign off the measures during his party conference in the city most directly hit by the cut.The savings are set to free up more than £10 billion that can instead be spent on an east-west high-speed link - Northern Powerhouse Rail - as well as improvement to major roads and bus routes, he is set to say.
He continued: "Therefore, stand back from the bit that is still yet to be planned and say ‘how do we do this at much less cost?’ and we’ve got offers from major companies who have done this in other countries.” No10 previously slapped down speculation that the PM is imminently to announce the ditching of the Northern part of the line in a bid to save cash.
Read more: Chancellor Jeremy Hunt says taxes are ‘too high’ in Britain - but can’t say when they might come down When grilled on whether he wanted to see Sir Keir Starmer make such a promise, he replied: “Of course, I'm not going to say not.
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