It’s time to ditch the £106bn folly of HS2

The two businessmen from Cheshire were due to meet me near London Bridge at 12.30. They arrived 10 minutes early and marvelled at the speed of their journey.

They’d come from Macclesfield. One of them commented that he could not see the point of HS2 because “for £100bn it will save me 11 minutes.” A ride to Euston of 1hr 41 will become 1hr 30. In fact, he said, it would be worse, because he lives 10 minutes from Macclesfield station, and he will have to drive further to the new HS2 terminus.

Cue his companion, who said, “they’d be better off spending the £100bn on making sure I don’t lose my signal on the train.” At this, his business partner nodded his agreement.

That was last week. Views like this should make Boris Johnson pause, if anything makes the Prime Minister pause. We were meeting on the very day that more people in Chesham & Amersham were voting Liberal Democrat than Conservative.

Part of their reasoning was that they object to the high-speed line cutting through their constituency. Johnson, who actively supports the planned service, can take comfort in the thought that while some may oppose, including the hitherto “True Blue” Buckinghamshire seat, those in the North love it.

No, they don’t. The folk the pro-HS2 lobby want to woo are like the two I saw. They are regular travellers who go up and down frequently between Cheshire and London. They think HS2 is a gross waste of money.

Johnson and his minders would doubtless argue that politically, comments like theirs don’t matter, that in other places in the North, HS2 is welcomed, and those locations are not as traditionally Conservative as affluent Cheshire.

In which case, I would retort that in all my travels around the North, where I hail from originally and still have family, I’ve yet to meet anyone (the 17, yes 17, communications agencies advising on HS2, other paid cheerleaders and local government chief and officials clinging to any mooted investment, excluded) who believes it is a good idea and money well spent.

As for the notion that Tory seats that are hostile aren’t the priority they could be if the Chesham & Amersham result is any guide. The pair from Cheshire are perfectly capable of exercising their opposition to the project at a general election.

HS2 is unwanted and unloved. The cost is £98bn to be precise. But should that be £106bn and counting? The £98bn figure is the official budget, but that was based on 2019 prices.

In his official review conducted last year, the former chairman of HS2 and civil engineer Doug Oakervee concluded the final bill could be £106bn.

His assessment was made pre-Covid. The effects of the pandemic are yet to be fully realised. Engineering work on the first phase between London and Birmingham is underway and already, the need for construction staff to socially distance and take other precautionary measures has added an extra £1.7bn. This, before anyone knows whether the virus will permanently change commuting patterns and lead to a reduction in demand.

The public spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, says it cannot give an accurate final estimate. Oakervee and others seem to be signalling their approval on the basis that £9bn has been spent so far and building the railway – the largest infrastructure project in Europe – provides a boost to Britain’s construction industry.

Neither of which are reasons for carrying on – not when we face an almighty public bill for Covid, when the NHS and social services are constantly lacking in funds, when employers complain about school-leavers not being adequately equipped (John Lewis is having to lay on numeracy lessons to help them cope), when new social housing is in short supply, when much of the country is without super-fast Wi-Fi.

That ignores, too, another gaping hole, in transport infrastructure in the North. HS2 may hasten travel to and from the capital but it won’t do anything to quicken the service from say, Stockport to Wakefield. Those improvements are meant to be coming as well, but the fear is that they will be scrapped or downgraded as the bill for the main one, HS2, soars.

Those lesser routes may not appeal so much to Johnson, they’re not so attention-grabbing for a leader who adores putting on a show and, in that sense, he may not view them as a crucial component of “levelling up”. In which case, he is wrong. It’s precisely those services that matter more to Northerners than trimming London journey times.

Rishi Sunak is said to have baulked at the £200m splashed on the new “Royal Yacht”, the ship that is meant to replace Britannia. The vessel will be operated by the Royal Navy and paid for out of the under-pressure Ministry of Defence budget . But it’s not exactly a warship, it’s unarmed and will be used for meetings with foreign leaders and dignitaries and for selling Britain to would-be investors. The Queen refused to countenance it being named after Prince Philip and opinion polls show the public is also unimpressed by the notion of a new “trade ship”.

This is another of Johnson’s “great, let’s do it” schemes, along with bridges and tunnels across the Irish Sea and English Channel, an island airport, a White House-style media briefing room, a cable car above the Thames and the Garden Bridge.

As he sits painting model buses and now presumably HS2 rolling stock and a national flagship boat, Johnson isn’t fixated on the finances. That’s Rishi’s territory.

If Sunak’s team are questioning £200m for a ship, then surely, they can do us all a favour and focus their spotlight on £100bn for a railway line.