Labour mayors to issue plea to PM over HS2

Five Labour mayors are set to meet later to issue a plea to the Prime Minister not to scrap the HS2 link between Birmingham and Manchester.

London mayor Sadiq Khan will join his fellow mayors in Leeds to sign a letter to Rishi Sunak.

They will also call on the government to commit to delivering Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) in full.

The government has said no decision has been made on whether to axe the line from the Midlands to the North West.

Alongside Mr Khan, West Yorkshire's Tracy Brabin, Greater Manchester's Andy Burnham, Steve Rotherham, mayor of Liverpool City Region and South Yorkshire's Oliver Coppard will attend the meeting.

Mr Burnham has previously said scrapping the HS2 extension to Manchester "rips the heart" out of NPR and would "leave the north of England with Victorian infrastructure, probably for the rest of this century".

The mayors will sign their letter ahead of a Transport for the North board meeting.

The high speed rail project is intended to link London, the Midlands and the north of England.

The first part, between west London and Birmingham, is already being constructed.

However, in late 2021 the planned eastern leg between Birmingham and Leeds was axed and in March it was announced that building the line between Birmingham and Crewe, and then onto Manchester, would be delayed for at least two years.

The last official estimate on HS2 costs, excluding the cancelled eastern section, added up to about £71bn.

But this was in 2019 prices so it does not account for the rise in costs for materials and wages since then, with some reports suggesting the price tag may now have soared past £100bn.

Speaking on Tuesday, Home Office minister Chris Philp said the Prime Minister and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt were reviewing the project now the costs have "gone up a lot".

"It's roughly tripled I think since it was first conceived," he told Sky News.

"No decisions have been taken about the remaining stages of HS2 but I do know the Chancellor and the Prime Minister are looking at how the cost can be controlled."