On the right track?

As expected, Rishi Sunak, in his closing speech to the Tory Party conference in Manchester this afternoon, announced the scrapping of the HS2 rail link from Birmingham to Manchester. He did, however, pledge to continue with the link from London to Birmingham from Euston, as originally planned, rather than Old Oak Common, though no longer delivered under the management of HS2 Ltd.

His announcement at least offers some clarity of purpose and ends speculation on the future of the second leg, though on the wider picture of rail connectivity it raises almost as many questions as it answers. He very bullishly set out a list of supposed benefits arising out of the axing of the second leg and the wider distribution of the estimated £36billion saving to other rail, tram and road projects in the North of England and Scotland, plus electrified links to Wales from Crewe, but whether this will be enough to mollify angry regional mayors like Andy Street and Andy Burnham is doubtful. I expect we'll find out very soon.

HS2 was a Labour plan under Gordon Brown's premiership but it became a vanity project when it was championed by that vainest of all Tory Prime Ministers, Boris Johnson. He announced it to bolster his post-Brexit levelling up agenda for the North. Unfortunately, he also scrapped the Eastern spur to Leeds so if he had hoped to emulate the success of his predecessor, John Major's 1996 legislarion to build the HS1 (Eurostar Channel Tunnel) rail link to St Pancras International, he had missed his moment. Rather, by cancelling the Leeds link, he had repeated the mistake of HS1 not linking to the East Coast Line as originally planned, which would have allowed direct travel from Scotland and the North East to Paris and beyond.

HS2 was a misguided proposition from its inception. If it had to be done at all, work should have commenced in the North of England and moved South rather than starting from London Euston. That might have helped in meaningfully 'levelling up' the North but the scheme as rolled-out has been a fiasco, finally scuppered by spiralling construction costs, partly as a result of global factors but given the coup de grâce by the economic recklessness of Johnson's brief successor, Liz Truss, and her even briefer Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng.

The savings Sunak claims to have made by the axing could prove as elusive as Johnson's much-vaunted Brexit Dividend (sic) and it's very unlikely they'll feature on the side of any Tory campaign bus. But now he's announced them publicly he'll be held to them by regional mayors, voters and posterity. Failure to deliver will be electoral suicide for the Tories but maybe Sunak is hedging his bets by creating a poisoned chalice he can pass on to Keir Starmer and Labour in the event he loses the general election.

I'm still not convinced he will but it will be interesting to see in the coming days and weeks whether Sunak, by grasping the nettle of HS2 and by his other policy announcements, including a replacement for A and T Levels and further restrictions on smoking and vaping (oh, and his dog whistle comments on gender reassignment, which got the loudest applause), will have done enough to restore the flagging fortunes of the Tory Party and secure his leadership. If the Tories win the next election Sunak will be obliged to deliver on his promises - if, that is, he is still in a position to do so.

It is a tragedy that the nation that gave railways to the world should find itself in this ignominious mess but British politicians' envy of continental grands projets is misplaced. What is feasible in large European nations like France, Germany and Spain is not necessarily translatable to our smaller, more densely populated, landmass, with its snaking network of Victorian railway infrastructure. Smaller, more bespoke upgrades of existing lines alongside some selective strategic new interventions is probably the best solution for Britain now. The problem is, the cancellation of the leg to Manchester could have the unintended consequence of rendering the East-West, Hull-Liverpool upgrade impossible due to a key infrastructure gap in that city that HS2 was meant to fill.

Wholesale electrification of the rail network would have been a good start but even that was painfully slow to be undertaken and is still incomplete. Diesel engines on our railways in the era of CO2 net emissions commitments is utterly indefensible. Improved connectivity with existing bus, tram, metro and light rail links, and the creation of many new such links, would have gone a long way towards levelling up the rest of the country outside London and the South East. Better late than never, I suppose - rather like the trains.

Buses, especially electric or hybrid versions, would make far more impact in most parts of the UK than any other form of public transport and would do much more to promote economic growth, and much more quickly. But the sad truth is that they aren't seen as sexy. Politicians like big, bold, shiny infrastructure projects like high-speed railways, new motorways and airports that they can attach their names to. Where's the glamour in creating a new bus route? But these are the workaday solutions which just, well, work - and at a fraction of the cost of a brand new railway line. 

Much more satisfactory, achievable and sustainable surely are existing rail upgrades and reopening of closed lines, along with those better rail interchanges and improved connectivity with other forms of public transport. This isn't rocket science and an upgraded East-West connection between Hull and Liverpool, which Sunak pledged today, including a new station in Bradford, would arguably have been delivered decades ago had short-termism not prevented it. 

It will be interesting to see what Keir Starmer announces at his party conference in Liverpool which he addresses next Tuesday. But, ultimately, the development and delivery of a sensible national rail policy shouldn't rely on the vagaries of political party conferences.

It's no way to run a railway!


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