THE HS2 project offers “very poor value for money” after Rishi Sunak scrapped its northern legs, a group of MPs said today.

The Prime Minister announced that the rail line would only be built between London and Birmingham in October, scrapping the leg to Manchester.

He also said private investment would be needed to complete the line from the suburbs of west London to a planned terminal at Euston amid spiralling costs.

Today, the Commons’ public accounts committee (PAC) said the assessment behind completing only phase one of the project carries “many uncertainties” and that it was “highly sceptical” that the Department for Transport (DfT) would be able to attract the private investment needed for the Euston terminus.

The PAC report the department and HS2 Ltd “do not yet know what it expects the final benefits of the programme to be.”

It noted that the DfT judged continuing with the phase one section “was value for money” partly due to avoiding £11 billion of costs that would be incurred from cancellation, and warned: “There are many uncertainties in this assessment and we were left with little assurance over the calculations.”

TSSA general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust said ministers “should grasp the nettle and recognise that high-speed rail is the only clean and green way to turbo-charge our local, regional and national economies in the decades ahead. 

“The Britain of the future will need HS2 not only across north but all the way to Scotland too — the long-term dividends would be immense,” she said.

The DfT said it disagreed with PAC’s assessment and that its plans for Euston had already “received extensive support from the private sector to invest.”