L

Lord Shamash (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 22 June 2026

Debate

HS2 Ltd: Consultants

Contribution

My Lords, may I invite my noble friend the Minister and everyone else in the House to join me in 2037—I repeat: 2037—at the opening of HS2 to save 30 minutes getting to Birmingham? At the moment, that has cost us, as we have heard from the Minister, £102 billion. To cancel it would be £58 billion. To save further money, they are reducing the top speed by 25 miles per hour. Frankly, you could not make this up. It seems that the potential saving of some £50 billion could be better spent, not least on a few submarines. I invite my noble friend the Minister to think very seriously about cancelling this white elephant.

More from Lord Shamash (Lab)

Other recent Hansard contributions by the same speaker.

About Hansard

Hansard is the official verbatim record of proceedings in the UK Parliament. Every word spoken in the Commons and Lords is recorded and published — this page is a single contribution from that record.

Partner sites