Nigel Farage was firmly put in his place by Labour minister Heidi Alexander after he called for the government to entirely scrap HS2.
On Wednesday, the government announced that HS2 would be delayed beyond 2033 following a review into the project. Transport secretary Alexander told the Commons there had been a “litany of failure” in the HS2 project and its management.
But she confirmed that phase one of the project, between Birmingham and London, will go ahead.
Speaking to the house, she said: We will learn the lessons of the past 15 years, and restore our reputation of delivering world-class infrastructure projects.
“Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been wasted by constant scope changes, ineffective contracts and bad management.”
One of the few MPs who was in the chamber for her statement was Nigel Farage, and the Reform UK leader reckoned he had the perfect solution for the HS2 project: scrapping the whole thing.
He told the house HS2 would only have benefitted “rich businessmen” and “driven businesses from the north of England to London.”
He asked Alexander whether the moment had come “to recognise this is a failure” and that the project should be scrapped.
“Surely the time has come to scrap the entirety of the project and recognise that we got it wrong,” he said.
But Alexander was in no doubt about where the government stood on HS2, telling Farage the government would not let Britain be “a country that spends over£30b on rail infrastructure, but then never sees a train running on it.”
She questioned why the Clacton MP was calling for more wasted money, and highlighted “significant capacity constraints between Birmingham and London”, accusing Farage of not wanting to address these issues.
“I think those two great cities in our country deserve a railway that’s fit for the 21st century, I’m just sorry he doesn’t”, she added.
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