After weeks of speculation, Sunak confirmed the scrapping of “the rest of the HS2 project” during his closing speech at the Conservative Party conference, held in a former train station in Manchester. 

Sunak explained his decision to scrap any HS2 connection that is not in the London–Birmingham leg as a result of changing circumstances and rising costs. The move goes against the warnings of former prime ministers, political allies, regional mayors and businesses. 

“I say to those who backed the project in the first place, the facts have changed,” Sunak said. “And the right thing to do when the facts change is to have the courage to change direction.

“So I am ending this long-running saga. I am cancelling the rest of the HS2 project.”

HS2 was a central part of Boris Johnson’s levelling-up agenda, designed to improve rail connections between cities in the Midlands and the North with London. It was given the go-ahead in 2020 despite a decade of sharply rising...