Call comes after National Infrastructure Chair John Armitt’s dismissed claims the line would cost £150bn as “wild and fanciful”
Unions have demanded ministers call an emergency summit on HS2 amid expectations that the government is set to scrap the line’s northern leg between Birmingham and Manchester.
The Trades Union Congress and five member unions said people involved in the project must “urgently” find a way to get it “back on track”.
Rishi Sunak has repeatedly refused to confirm that HS2’s northern leg will go ahead following reports that he has become “alarmed” by the railway’s spiralling costs, which are said to be at risk of topping £100bn.
The unions said in a statement that cancelling the Birmingham to Manchester route would undermine confidence in the UK’s ability to build large infrastructure projects.
“The UK already trails much of Europe when it comes to high-speed rail infrastructure,” the statement said.
“While the likes of Spain, France and Germany all have extensive high-speed rail networks, the UK has managed just 70 miles worth of track.
“We are being left behind and it’s communities across the North and the Midlands that will pay the price.”
TUC general secretary Paul Nowak told the BBC that HS2 was a “key national infrastructure project” and was “too important to be treated as a political football”.
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He said a summit was needed to bring together HS2 contractors, unions, regional mayors and the government to discuss how to “get the project back on track”.
Nowak said a way needed to be found that “delivers for taxpayers, but crucially also delivers benefits for UK supply chains, creates and sustains good quality jobs and drives regional economic growth”.
The comments come after National Infrastructure Commission chairman Sir John Armitt dismissed claims from Conservative peer Michael Lord that the budget for HS2 had rocketed to £150bn as “wild and fanciful”.
Armitt told Building’s Building the Future Commission conference earlier this week the figure was probably closer to £90bn.
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Armitt said the budgets needed to be scrutinised again with its current cost widely accepted to be around £70bn although this figure is based on 2019 prices.
He defended the scheme and said “we can’t spend forever putting sticky tape on old [Victorian] infrastructure”.
And he said the UK had a strong record in building infrastructure schemes and too easily berated itself when things went wrong.
“We are very good at infrastructure in this country,” he said. “We always remember the bad and always criticise ourselves.”
Armitt told the same conference the consequence of cutting HS2 will be to turn the country’s flagship infrastructure scheme into little more than a “shuttle” between west London and Birmingham.
He said: “While politics will never be removed from infrastructure, and ministers will understandably want to shape the direction of major programmes, we need to face up to the implications of chopping and changing policy.
“Curtailing the High Speed 2 route so it becomes a shuttle between Acton and Birmingham makes no economic sense.”
The NIC is due to present its next National Infrastructure Assessment on 18 October.
The assessment is published every five years and sets out costed recommendations to government on priorities for the next 20 to 30 years.
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