Sunak: I won’t be rushed into decision on HS2Good morning. Rishi Sunak has been doing a mini-interview round this morning, and not for the first time it has been dominated by him dodging questions about the future of HS2. For years to come this conference will serve as a case study for students of political spin who will try to work out why Sunak and his team went into this conference with this issue still lingering over it – neither resolved, nor decisively shelved until the autumn statement. No one in the press centre has a particularly good answer. Maybe some counter-intuitive, genius PR strategy is in play, but it feels more like old-fashioned cock-up.
In an interview with BBC Breakfast this morning, Sunak said he did not want to be “rushed” into a decision. Asked about HS2, he replied:
I know you want to keep asking, I know there’s lots of speculation, but all I can say is I’m not going to be forced into a premature decision because it’s good for someone’s TV programme. What I want to do is make the right decision for the country.
This is an enormous amount of people’s money, taxpayers’ money, billions and billions of pounds. We shouldn’t be rushed into things like that.
What people would expect from me is to take the time, go into it properly and make sure we make the right long term decision for the country. That’s what I’m interested in doing.
I think that’s what politicians should be doing. I think that’s what the country wants to see – people who make the right long-term decision, don’t take the easy way out, don’t chase the headlines. And that’s what I did with net zero.
The problem with Sunak saying that he should not be rushed is that all the reporting says the decision to scrap the link from Birmingham to Manchester has, in effect, already been taken.
I will post more from his interviews shortly.
Here is our overnight story on HS2.
And here is the agenda for the day.
11am: Steve Barclay, the health secretary, opens conference proceedings in the main hall. Other ministers speaking are Michelle Donelan, the science secretary, at 11.15am and Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, at 11.30am.
12.30pm: Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, speaks at a Centre for Policy Studies fringe event.
2pm: Theresa May, the former prime minister, speaks at a fringe event.
3pm: Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, opens afternoon proceedings in the hall. He is followed by Suella Braverman, the home secretary, at 3.15pm.
4.15pm: Gove and Lord Frost speak at a fringe event on the future of Conservatism.
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