Lord Liddle
Main Page: Lord Liddle (Labour - Life peer)
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, does the noble Lord not accept that this announcement is being greeted with great disappointment on all sides of the House? This was a project for which there was substantial cross-party consensus. One of the failings of Britain over the years has been in carrying through major projects that could be economically transformative. I come from Cumberland, in the north. The HS2 project offered the prospect of investment, which will now not take place. Look at the investment taking place in Birmingham as a result of the prospect of HS2. The north is now being deprived. Does he not recognise that this is the end of the Conservatives’ ambitions to hold on to the red wall?
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
No, I do not accept that. I can only repeat that our ambition remains for the first high-speed services to run between Old Oak Common in west London and Birmingham Curzon Street by 2033. We are committed to it. I repeat that we find ourselves in an economic climate that perhaps will cause delay, and the Government have taken a very pragmatic view.