Rishi Sunak is preparing to deliver his first Conservative Party conference speech as prime minister, where he is widely expected to abandon the northern leg of HS2.
As first reported by The Independent, Mr Sunak will tell conference delegates that the Birmingham to Manchester leg of the high-speed rail project will be ditched.
The prime minister is expected to take the stage at 11.15am in Manchester following speeches from Penny Mordaunt, the Leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt, and Johnny Mercer, the minister for veterans’ affairs.
As well as curtailing the HS2 project, Mr Sunak will use his speech to criticise 30 years of a “broken” system incentivising “the easy decision, not the right one”.
With the Tories having been in charge for most of the last three decades, he will pitch himself as the man to “fundamentally change our country” ahead of an election expected at some point next year.
The Independent will be providing a livestream of the Mr Sunak’s speech here.
It has been a trying conference for Mr Sunak so far who has struggled to keep on top of criticism from within his own party over the decision to curtail HS2.
Adding to his problems, his predecessor Liz Truss drew big conference crowds as she demanded immediate tax cuts to “make Britain grow again” a year after she left office after a chaotic 49 days.
The conference has also seen Suella Braverman use her speech to warn of a “hurricane” of migrants, comments which caused unease among some senior Conservatives and more widely across the political spectrum.
Mrs Braverman said: “The wind of change that carried my own parents across the globe in the 20th century was a mere gust compared to the hurricane that is coming.
“Because today, the option of moving from a poorer country to a richer one is not just a dream for billions of people. It’s an entirely realistic prospect.”
Mrs Braverman said the future “could bring millions more migrants to these shores, uncontrolled and unmanageable, unless the government they elect next year acts decisively to stop that happening”.
Tory Party conference – live: Sunak set to finally confirm he will scrap HS2 rail link to Manchester
