‘Second-class citizens’ - Andy Burnham blasts HS2 uncertainty as he launches Bee Network

Andy Burnham has hit out at the debate over the future of the HS2 project believing people in the north are once again being treated as “second-class citizens”. 

There’s increasing speculation that the northern leg of the rail project will be scrapped - with an announcement potentially coming in the next few days. 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has refused to be drawn on reports in the national media but former Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme it would be “irresponsible” to carry on spending on the marquee project as costs continued to accelerate. 

Ditching the northern part of the plan would mean London would not directly link to Manchester as has been the long-time vow. Sections of the line in the northern section have already been axed, with the line between Leeds and Birmingham scrapped and the former being linked with Manchester. 

Labour has accused the Tories of a "great betrayal" with the rollout of the HS2 project. However, party leader Sir Keir Starmer has refused to commit to completing HS2 in full if Labour is voted into power.

Speaking as he launched his own major transport project, Greater Manchester’s Bee Network, Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham told Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: “An east-west line is really important for north of England, as well as north-south. Why is it always that people here are forced to choose? That we can’t have everything, ‘you can have this or you can have that but you can’t have everything’?

“London never has to choose between a north-south line and an east-west line and good public transport within the city.

“Why is it that people in the north are always forced to choose, why are we always treated as second-class citizens when it comes to transport?

“This was the Parliament that said they would level us up. If they leave a situation where the southern half of the country is connected by modern high-speed lines, and the north of England is left with Victorian infrastructure, that is a recipe for the north-south divide to become a north-south chasm over the rest of this century.

“And that is why people here are fed up with false promises and also watching now what seems to be the desperate acts of a dying Government. This is really not right and not fair to people here who were given so many promises.”