The latest business headlines with Greg Wright
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00:00 Hello, my name is Greg Wright. I'm the Deputy Business Editor of the Yorkshire Post,
00:04 and here are your business headlines for this morning.
00:07 Former Prime Minister David Cameron has criticised the announcement made by Rishi Sunak
00:13 at the Conservative Party conference that sections of HS2 are going to be scrapped.
00:18 In a speech at the Conservative Party conference, Mr Sunak confirmed that HS2 will run from Euston
00:24 in central London to Birmingham, but will no longer extend beyond the West Midlands,
00:28 with Manchester among the areas missing out. Instead, Mr Sunak promised to use £36 billion
00:35 of savings from scrapping sections of HS2 to fund a raft of other transport schemes.
00:41 He told backers of HS2 that the facts have changed and there's a need for courage to change direction.
00:47 However, the former Prime Minister David Cameron described the decision as the wrong one,
00:53 adding it will help to fuel the views of those who argue that we can no longer think or act for
00:58 the long term as a country, and that we're heading in the wrong direction.
01:03 HS2 is about investing for the long term, Mr Cameron said, bringing the countries together,
01:08 ensuring a more balanced economy and delivering the Northern Powerhouse. We achieved historic
01:13 cross-party support with extensive buy-in from city and local authority leaders across
01:18 the Midlands and the north of England. And Mr Cameron said the announcement
01:22 throws away 15 years of cross-party consensus, sustained over six administrations,
01:27 will make it much harder to build consensus for any future long-term project. So,
01:32 stern words there from David Cameron, criticising the decision by the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak
01:37 to announce that sections of HS2 are going to be scrapped.
01:41 My name is Greg Wright and I'm the Deputy Business Editor of the Yorkshire Post.