In this week’s Budget, the government reportedly plans to achieve £54bn per year of fiscal tightening – £33bn from spending cuts, £21bn from tax increases – by 2027/28. Few of the choices are palatable. Many are awful. But at least one would actually be popular. Scaling back HS2 could alone deliver almost a tenth of the spending cuts required, £3bn per year by 2027/28, significantly more (up to £7bn per year) in later years and perhaps £44bn or more in total.

HS2 is not an instant way to avoid all cuts. The savings potential is vast, but is spread over more than 20 years. Much of the spending in the next few years is on parts of the scheme that are too late to cancel. But meaningful sums can still be saved in this Parliament, and very significant sums indeed from the middle of this decade onwards, well within the window for fiscal tightening planned by the Chancellor. In the short to medium term, scaling back HS2 can at least mitigate a new round of spending cuts., In the medium to long term, it will create significant headroom for investment in better transport projects – projects which deliver more benefits, to more places, more quickly. In ConservativeHome’s words, “robbing the white elephant to pay the Red Wall.”