But fast forward, 20 years when HS two will in theory be a reality building to freeze, and we'll have faster journeys, increased capacity and more trains.

But will some of the planned route only get some of the plan at a time when the North's being promised investment infrastructure?

And as the prime minister says, things being leveled up, it seems a chest to north of Birmingham might be paused to allow some rethinking, prompting a furious response from those insisting it can't be axed halfway.

It's the same old story, isn't it that we have a gold plated railway between London and Birmingham, But when it gets to further north or what, we can't have high speed.

We'll have to have conventional lines.

That's why we got the chaos that we've got today, that the North has never had the investment that it needs, and now it looks as though that could be about to be repeated.

Is there no on argument, though, for saying okay, fine HS two long wind dates costing more money than we ever anticipated.

Let's actually get on with the work that needs doing in the North.

Now there is an argument for that, and I would certainly support that on.

I'm not against actually some of the costs of HS to being brought down.

But make those savings all the way down the line south of Birmingham into London in the Southeast as well.

Why have this different approach for the investment north of Birmingham again?

It's like will get a second class service back at the beginning, 34 billion was the price tag for a chest to buy last year, With work underway, it had more than doubled.

Today, it seems perhaps £106 billion that figure, apparently from the official review of a chest, too.

It's not yet been published, but parts of it have been wisely leaked.

And as the prices kept going up, so is the level of skepticism from some about its value, whether it always could actually benefit people traveling where they need to be.

My main concern is it's gonna drag a ll the prosperity and jobs and economy back into London.

Nothing's gonna make any difference to anybody, really, If they were, if they were creating a high speed rail that also tackled cost situation.

Then I think that would get people out of their cars, and it would encourage people to use public transport more ridiculous numbers.

We don't really don't need it way Don't whoever signs off needs needs ostracized in and, you know way can't have it.

What, we really better activity Better Local bus service is better train service.

Better cross pen line service is That's what we need to kick start the economy on what we need right now in that cup of years.

Noah Project, 20 years to build the Department for Transport says it's had a draft of the Oak Avi report since just before Christmas on a final decision will be made shortly.

What's for sure is that HS two is divisive.

Whatever is decided won't be what some want.

I'm joined now via the Internet by Andrew Sentance, a member of the Okay Vee Paddle, which completed its review of the HSE to project late last year under sentence.

What What is the true status of this report?

You you lot worked so hard on Well, my understanding is that it was submitted to the government um, in late October, Early November, the final sort of say so off.

What was in the report?

Waas.

Right.

Determined by the jamming?

I don't know.

Could be I'm gonna be little gold.

No, you're very good to have done a report.

Any to be with this talk is good.

Bonus.

You had a cough.

Have a good car, friend.

And that's good.

Let's get it out.

Right.

Sorry about that stuff.

Don't worry.

He he was the final author of the report, but in the final drafts I saw, um My understanding was it was submitted to the government later.

Dover in November.

But what's going on then?

Why do you What's your sense of what's going on?

Do you think you said something the government didn't like or they liked it so much?

They want to dress it up.

Well, you have to ask the government about that.

They're not talkative tonight.

Sorry about all the coffee.

There's a bit of a bug going round in this part of the world.

Um, I think it's a very put it political, politically controversial project and various people in government is spending it in different ways.

And I think That's what we're seeing portrayed into the press.

I think the best outcome would be that the report is probably published, which is my understanding.

That would happen by the end of last year.

You know, we're now into January, and there's no much indication that the report will be published quite seen.

Thank you very much, because I think you're gonna sense what the situation is.

Hand Thanks for braving it through the through the ether.

Thanks a lot.

All the very best thinking.

Well, we're joined now from Westminster by the Labour Peer in one of the architects of the HS two project Lord a donor's.

Do you feel this is slipping away now you think the government's laying the groundwork for killing it off?

Well, that's clearly a massive argument going on inside the Conservative Party.

That's what's basically happening at the moment on.

But that was a licensed by Boris Johnson because what he did by appointing this review before the general election was to give both sides of the impression that he might come down on their side.

So he appointed Doug.

Okay, Vite chair.

It's who is his infrastructure advisor as mayor of London on who I'm confident because he's very sensible.

Infrastructure sees and knows what the requirements are that he will be recommending strongly in favor of HS to continuing.

But he also put known opponents of HS two on the same review group who, as you say, have Bean briefing strongly against HS two.

Now these chickens coming home to roost.

Now you can't continually say that you back both the opponents on the proponents of a Chester.

You've got to come down on one side.

What concerns me is that this is cast in terms off whether or not a Chester is going to be allowed to go ahead, but in fact it it is going ahead.

At the moment, £9 billion has been spent on HS.

2 2000 people are working on the project, but it is a company that made that clear.

Yes, but it's not know they were.

The whole point about is they haven't made sufficiently clear, and it's very important that people understand that we're not talking about not proceeding with just two we'd be talking about midway through the construction of the biggest infrastructure project in Europe, we'd be talking about pulling the plug on dhe to cancel £9 billion worth of investment.

Throw thousands of people into unemployment on dhe to leave no infrastructure plan at all.

For linking the major conurbation of this country would be, I mean, one of the most extraordinary things that be possible to imagine a new government doing, which is particularly one that's trying to give a new economic plan to the Midlands on the North.

This is political at the end of the day, isn't it?

And if the government feels that it would be better off spending billions of pounds on specific roads in specific areas, you know that may or may not help it desire to spend money on places that have recently voted conservative.

Then why shouldn't do it?

Well, of course, the government connected a zit sees fit if it could get parliament's consent that I should note that parliament has twice over the last 10 years considered legislation for ages to when it's gone.

Through all the arguments, we have a full parliamentary process, including analysis of the economic and the transport infrastructure case for ages two, and on both occasions, the House of Commons voted by majorities of 10 to 1 in favor of HS two.

So any objective analysis of the case would I'm absolutely confident lead to it continuing.

But on your point about whether the money could be diverted, you had won a Tory MP on your earlier report saying it be great if we could have a quick action on roads and railways.

I mean, this is absolute pie in the sky.

The idea You could cancel h us, too, and then suddenly pulled down off the shelf.

10.

15 Other schemes, none of which have prepared, none of which have got planning consent, none of which have got business cases attached is totally for the birds.

If hs to his cancer, what would actually happen is an infrastructure drought.

Let me bring in the mid lands in the north, and that would be a terrible thing.

I do conservative MP who I think wants to do pretty much that.

Which is the council?

A chest tube which goes through his constituency.

I'm sure that's just a coincidence, isn't it?

Greg Smith.

Thank you for joining us, Andrew Doughnuts.

There is just telling us that you know your proposals which were actually tow drop hs two and build lots of other projects.

Is pie in the sky is for the birds?

I don't agree with that at all.

We've seen in reports that have come out, whether it's Lord Barclays Review or the leak that's come out today.

A cost tag of in excess of £100 billion for this scheme on Lord Barclay was clear that actually on his calculations will only get 60 p back for every pound spent on That is not a responsible thing to do.

And when I talked to some of my new colleagues physically in the north of England, but in the Midlands as well, what they're crying out for is better.

Connective ity East west in the north of England on better local commuter routes are on road and rail in and around their areas, and likewise in my own constituency.

Buckingham, which would be devastated already, is being devastated by some of the enabling works off.

Hey, chest to what we really want to things like East West Rail delivered, which will help ease some of the congestion on the East Coast on the West Coast main line by ensuring that people can move from Milton Keen's to Vista and intersect with the Children line.

So what do you say to those people who say You're just a NIMBY not in my backyard?

Well, I would invite anyone to come down and see what is happening in the Buckingham constituency right now.

In the enabling works alone, we've seen 500 acres of vegetation in Steve or Clayton ripped out ancient woodlands.

People's farms tourney into people's homes taken away for them, which which, incidentally, a lot of people in my constituency that have had property taken away are yet to receive a pound for it.

Hey, Chest too Limited.

Have behaved disgracefully over this, not least when they turned up at the Calvert Jubilee Nature Reserve with their chain saws land that due to a mapping error, they shouldn't have even been on in the first place.

So this isn't a case of NIMBYism.

This is a case off saying, Look at the devastation this will cause not just in my constituency, but along the whole route on dhe.

Then look at the price tag on what we'll actually get back on this investment.

You've really got to think twice about this scheme on actually deliver smaller, better projects like East West Rail and, like the northern powerhouse rail that will really improve people's lives.

Let me put that back to Lord of Donors when I was the secretary state for transports who launched East West Rail the project in that the MP for Buckingham has just mentioned.

So these aren't either, or it's not the case that to do smaller scale improvements, you therefore cancel the big scheme.

And I think most people understand that we obviously need local schemes which is successful.

And I'm a great believer in the east West rail project that links Oxford Mr Milton Keen's.

But we also need tohave modern infrastructure, green infrastructure that can deal with the huge demands we've got for transport within our major conservations.

London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds.

Now, of course, a huge new regret that that there's disruption which is inevitably caused by building a new railway.

But if you don't make any investment in the infrastructure of the future, what you do is you turn the country backwards and you don't make it possible for us to meet the challenges of the future.

And that's precisely why we're proceeding with a chest.

We must leave it there.

Thank you very much.

Greg Smith.

Thank you very much for joining us.

So, to another great national project under pressure, the BBC Tony Hall has announced he'll step down as director general this summer.

Lord Hall, who took up the post in 2013 said he believed he was leaving the BBC in a much stronger place on when I joined.

Critics point to ongoing diversity issues on the gender pay gap ra So with a licence review on the horizon, the prime minister signaling a rethink of the BBC licence fee, How big are the challenges facing his successor?

His uh, political correspondent Paul McNamara.