'HS2 Light' may be built in the West Midlands – find out what it means for passengers

A Cabinet colleague spoke of a willingness to invest as it was reported a new railway line could be built through Staffordshire between Birmingham and Crewe.

Asked about a report suggesting the line will go ahead, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said: "I think the difficulty that the Transport Secretary and the Chancellor have is that the last government seriously overcommitted to projects that they had no idea how they were going to fund from the public finances, and so it's meant some very tough decisions.

"I can't obviously pre-empt what's going to be in the spending review, which the Chancellor will announce in a matter of weeks.

"But I know it's something that the Transport Secretary is looking at very seriously."

The line between Birmingham and Crewe would be quicker than the existing West Coast mainline but slower than HS2.

Ms Nandy said: "As a constituency MP, and also as a member of the Government, we would want to see far more investment in transport in the north of England, and far more ability for mayors and councils to be able to determine how that investment is spent."

The mayors of the West Midlands and Greater Manchester have unveiled a 50-mile track to run from where the HS2 line is due to end in Staffordshire so it can join a planned “northern powerhouse” rail line west of Manchester airport. The proposal would enable a new station at Curzon Street in Birmingham to serve both the north of England as well as the new HS2 line to London.

Ms Nandy also suggested east-west connectivity may be a higher priority, adding: “I would say that the biggest, pressing, priority in the north of England is to improve east-west connectivity.

“One of the reasons that people suffer absolute misery on the railways in the north is because everything gets snarled up around Manchester because the stations are very old, the platforms aren’t long enough, we simply don’t have the capacity and it causes absolute chaos from east to west.”

An infrastructure review by the former Siemens UK boss Jürgen Maier for Labour last month said the cancellation of the HS2 northern leg would “leave the west coast mainline, and in tandem the M6 motorway, to collapse”.

The transport secretary is also reported to be considering extending the HS2 line to Euston. Louise Haigh said it would make “absolutely no sense” to have the high-speed route terminate outside central London.

Rishi Sunak last year ruled out extending the HS2 line to central London unless enough private investment was secured for the project, hoping to save £6.5bn of taxpayers’ money. It would instead go to Old Oak Common in west London.

However the Commons public accounts committee in February said it was “highly sceptical” the transport department would be able to attract enough private investment on “the scale and speed required” to make extending HS2 to Euston a success.

When asked if it was affordable for HS2 to reach Euston, Ms Haigh said: “We will be making an announcement on that soon.

“But it certainly would never have made sense to leave it between Old Oak Common and Birmingham.”

If HS2 terminated at Old Oak Common, passengers who want to travel to central London would need to change trains.

The project is expected to be funded by changes that the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will announce in her budget on 30 October.

When asked if the line would go ahead, Ms Nandy, the culture secretary, told Times Radio: “I think the difficulty that the transport secretary and the chancellor have is that the last government seriously overcommitted to projects that they had no idea how they were going to fund from the public finances, and so it’s meant some very tough decisions.

“I can’t obviously pre-empt what’s going to be in the spending review, which the chancellor will announce in a matter of weeks.

“But I know it’s something that the transport secretary is looking at very seriously.”