04 Oct Government not turning its back on levelling up, says Grant Shapps
DEFENCE Secretary Grant Shapps has denied that scrapping HS2 means the Government is abandoning its levelling up policy.
He told GB News: “It absolutely is not turning our back at all in fact, of course we need to wait for the Prime Minister’s speech if he were to scrap, the second leg of HS2 we’re talking about, and take that money.
“You can’t really judge it without finding out what where that money is going to be spent, because that could actually have a fantastic levelling up opportunity. It’s billions of pounds, tens of billions of pounds.
“So what could that be spent on and perhaps there are things which are worthwhile doing more than building a high speed rail line, given Covid, given what’s happened since given the change in travel patterns,
“You’ve got a Prime Minister as they prepared to look at very, very difficult things. A lot of people shy away from these difficult long term decisions. He thinks that we can make better long term decisions, have a brighter future by doing that, not afraid to sometimes take the difficult decisions.”
In a discussion during Breakfast with Eamonn Holmes and Isabel Webster, he continued: “So far, all we’ve heard is about HS2 and whether that second leg might not go ahead.
“We still have much further faster journeys, by the way, between London and Manchester, significantly faster, they’re still upgrading the railway lines, [there’s] also digital signalling, modern techniques which can speed up those journeys.
“Given what we know about travel patterns, why not take that money and spend it on other things? Difficult decisions to make, not going to be popular with everyone, that’s the sort of thing that’s Prime Minister is prepared to do.”
On the Home Secretary’s warning on mass migration numbers, he said: “This Conservative government is gripping this issue. We’ve seen a fall in the number of people coming here illegally.
“I’m afraid the same can be said for Keir Starmer, who votes against every single measure we take to stop people from illegally travelling.”
