When news leaked that Rishi Sunak was planning to row back on net zero goals last week, it took Downing Street less than 24 hours to get the prime minister out in front of a podium to confirm the news and lay out his rationale. But for nearly a fortnight, the fate of HS2 has hung in the balance. Far from seizing the agenda after plans to pare back the high-speed rail project emerged, Sunak has been accused by Conservative MPs of vacillating. The void has spurred on critics and supporters of HS2 to fight even harder – compounding the difficulty of the situation for Sunak. And with talk of putting off a final decision until the autumn statement in November, government insiders know the row could intensify further. The immovable event in front of them is the Conservative party conference, beginning on Sunday. With such a significant split running through the party, Sunak’s aides fear Tory MPs will be left squabbling over HS2 at fringe events. HS2 has the power to become a dominating theme and to distract from the key aims of setting out his stall to voters before a general election and winning the confidence of Tory members who shunned him in last year’s leadership contest. The conference’s location also poses a problem: equivocating over whether he is committed to the northern leg of HS2 from a conference centre in Manchester risks making Sunak look uncommitted to levelling up. Having irked Boris Johnson last week by junking his green goals, No 10 is wary that cutting back HS2 could provide Johnson with cover to launch an attack on Sunak’s wider agenda at the conference as well. Those close to Sunak believe the current situation of saying nothing is unsustainable, and so they suggest there will have to be an intervention explaining his concerns about the costs within the next week. But there is still scrambling over how to clamp down on HS2’s spiralling budget while avoiding rebellions. “It’s a 50/50 thing in the parliamentary party,” said one MP about the extent of the division. Andy Street, the Conservative mayor of the West Midlands, who is pushing for HS2 to be saved, held a meeting with Sunak on Tuesday. Other interventions – including from two previous prime ministers, as well as several former chancellors – are piling pressure on Sunak. Sunak is said to have signalled to colleagues this week that cuts are still on the table, but he is prepared to look at alternatives. Those close to the discussions in Downing Street say they underestimated the strength of the pushback and are now struggling to “put this back in the box”.
But a rearguard action is already being planned by Tory opponents of HS2, who say they are collecting dozens of signatures from MPs for a new letter to Sunak urging him to cut back on the project. Even if Sunak manages to sail through conference relatively untainted by the row over HS2, he will be gearing up for a parliamentary showdown later in the year. Phase 2a of the project – the Birmingham to Crewe section – is already law, so cancellation would involve a potentially messy vote in the Commons. Ministers could avoid giving it funding, but that would not stop Labour getting straight on with it again if it chose to do so. However, there is a wider risk to the row. Sunak promised in his net zero speech last week he would be unafraid to tackle controversial subjects and take difficult decisions dodged by previous governments. Dithering over the future of HS2 risks undermining the message he hoped would keep his administration afloat at the next election.