Rishi Sunak will announce around £30bn of spending on road, rail and buses in his conference speech.
The big spending commitment will come to sweeten the pill that the second leg of HS2, linking Birmingham and Manchester, won’t be fulfilled.
Speculation about what will or won’t happen to High-Speed Rail has been raging for weeks – and providing a serious distraction to the Conservative Party conference.
The second leg of high-speed rail – from Birmingham to Manchester – won’t go ahead.
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The prime minister and his team will be hoping the extra spending on road and rail will placate MPs, businesses and lobby groups’ concerns about the impact of downgrading HS2.
Election would be ‘massive distraction’ – Tory conference latest
In London, the high-speed track will be extended from Old Oak Common in west London to Euston.
This means that passengers can get on a train at Euston and travel to Birmingham on a high-speed railway, before the train will switch to the existing West Coast Mainline track to travel to Manchester.
A source Sophy Ridge: “This will mean unreliable and infrequent trains to Manchester – there just isn’t capacity for this to work. Using the existing track will our extra pressure on the west coast mainline.”
Read more:
HS2 won’t be high speed between Manchester and Birmingham
They added: “Cancelling Northern Powerhouse Rail will require a vote in the Commons to override the hybrid bills automatic continuation in King’s speech.
“The question is does the prime minister have the numbers against the opposition parties united against him as well.”
Number 10 have said they don’t comment on speculation.