AFTER the series of damaging blows landed on the HS2 project over the summer, the government is now attempting to fight back.

Business leaders and economic think tanks have gone over the project in fine detail and have pulled it apart. Many other organisations have looked at the budget being dedicated to HS2. They have examined this and commented that, for the available budget of £50 billion plus, many more projects across the length and breadth of the UK could be put into place to improve connectivity and help improve capacity on trains.

As the House of Commons reassembled this month, the government tried to rally support for the project. However the first thing that happened was the influential, cross-party Public Accounts Committee tore into the project. Among other things the committee report described the figures as “fragile”.

As a constituency MP I know that the new arguments which are being deployed are far from convincing. This is particularly true as, alongside the rallying cry from Ministers, one Minister wrote to me to say that, along the route of the London to Birmingham section, an estimated 400-500 more properties would be affected.

This compounds the misery faced by so many of my constituents. It is yet more last-minute, disorganised chaos. The Secretary of State for Transport says the project is no longer about speed but capacity and it shouldn’t even be called HS2! It’s as though he doesn’t want to talk about the (white) elephant in the room and thinks by giving it another name people will forget what it is and what it costs.

The government and HS2 Ltd have now paid for a new report by KPMG. Many of the previous criticisms about HS2 have been dismissed because it is said the figures are out of date. But are new figures going to be any more reliable than the old ones? The Institute for Economic Affairs looked at the new report the morning it was published and expressed their concerns about the fresh arguments.

The National Audit Office, the government spending watchdog, analysed the basis on which the project was launched and found that assumptions had been made, such as the fact that people do not work on trains. It is disingenuous to think that this new report will now be accepted without similar, rigorous examination.

It was announced on Thursday 12 September that the Government would be beginning its re-consultation with the public on compensation. This engagement is well over due and should have been made a priority by the Secretary of State. Nevertheless I urge everyone to respond to the consultation and make their feelings know. I will of course be submitting my own response on behalf of the constituency and you can find more details about how to respond on my website, www.cherylgillan.co.uk