Exclusive: Major donor questioning ‘ability to continue support’ for party amid doubt over Birmingham to Manchester leg
A prominent Conservative donor has threatened to stop supporting the party if Rishi Sunak scraps the Birmingham to Manchester leg ofFears that phase 2 of the high-speed rail line could be junked were compounded on Sunday when Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, saidA decision is expected to be taken by the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, and the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, early next week with an announcement pencilled in for Friday.
“But I’ve spoken to other donors, and several of them feel – possibly for the first time ever – recent events seriously call into question the ability to continue to support people who don’t do what they say they’d do.”stop donating to the ConservativesGeorge Osborne has also hit out at plans to curtail the project.
The Birmingham to London section was initially planned to finish at Euston in central London. Sunak and Hunt are also deciding whether to terminate that leg at Old Oak Common, in the west of the capital, which originally was planned as an interchange. The Sunday Telegraph reported it was likely to end up being £8bn more than the expected £45bn price tag put on it in June 2022.
Shapps, who is a former transport secretary, declined to dampen down suggestions that costs could be significantly cut back over the weekend. He told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg the government should ask itself: “Does this still stack up for what the country requires, in terms of where it’s spending its resources, and at what time?”
As part of his rationale for watering down several net zero targets, Sunak said he wanted to overhaul “short-termist” decision-making in government and that he would do things for the good of the country’s future even if they were unpopular. A government spokesperson said: “The HS2 project is already well under way with spades in the ground, and our focus remains on delivering it.”
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