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Andy Burnham says northerners are treated like “second-class citizens” in HS2 debate

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has said that the possible move to scrap the HS2 link between Birmingham and Manchester would reaffirm that northerners are always treated like “second-class citizens” when it comes to transport.

The debate over High-Speed Rail 2 is raging on, as the government refuses to comment on its commitment to the link from the West Midlands to Manchester.

In an interview with Sky News, Burnham said that if the government decided to axing that part of the route it would be “a recipe for a north-south divide to become a north-south chasm”.

And in an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the politician stated that the move would “leave the north of England with Victorian infrastructure, probably for the rest of the century.”

Yet the former Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, speaking to Victoria Derbyshire on the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg programme, said that it would be “crazy” not to review the plans amid soaring costs.

Shapps said: “There’s a balance of money that needs to be spent on health, education, defence and many other things.

“It is perfectly proper and responsible and a serious government looking at the long-term future makes these decisions even when sometimes they are not popular at that moment.”

Shapps did confirm that the government has not yet made a decision on the future of the project.

Former Chancellor George Osborne, part of the coalition government which introduced the High Speed Rail 2 plans to Parliament, wrote that scrapping the link to Manchester would be a “gross act of vandalism”.

In a joint piece with Lord Heseltine in the Times, the two suggested that removing that part of the route would be an “act of huge economic self-harm”.

In contrast, the current Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said that the costs were spiralling “totally out of control”.

The most recent estimates suggests that the project would cost £71billion, excluding the already cancelled eastern section to Leeds.

This figure came in 2019 and is not adjusted for inflation since then. The link from Birmingham to Manchester was said to be £26billion, just over a third of the total cost of HS2.

Much like the government, Labour’s position has also been unclear. Labour frontbencher Nick Thomas-Symonds said that Labour “will build HS2 in full”.

Yet the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones refused to commit entirely to the project: “The Labour Party would love to see HS2 built, including the connection to Leeds… (but) we are not going to make decisions about national infrastructure projects that involve tens of billions of pounds, without all of the information being available. We need to see the costs.”

A YouGov poll has shown what the public thinks with regards to transport links.

When asked whether the HS2 funding would be better spent on improving rail infrastructure in the North of England, 11% of Brits said the funding should remain with the High Speed Rail 2 project.

Another 31% said they would prefer northern focused infrastructural improvements, while 28% said both HS2 and northern upgrades equally.

The data changes when the poll divides Brits by region.

Just 10% of northerners suggested they would want to see HS2 prioritised, whilst half said they would rather the money be reallocated to improve connectivity between northern cities. 22% said both equally.

As the debate rages on in the political foreground, it appears HS2 is a relatively low down on the list of priorities for the British public.

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