Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has once again declined to announce whether the Birmingham-Manchester section of HS2 will be scrapped.

When asked if the high-speed line will reach Manchester, he told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, “We’re getting on with delivering [the project], I’m not going to comment on this speculation.”

Rising prices have raised concerns about the second section of HS2.

The first section, which connects London and Birmingham, is already under construction.

The construction of HS2 is considered as critical to the government’s ambition to “level up” the country. Labour and some Conservative MPs have urged against reducing it.

Former Prime Minister Theresa May became the latest Conservative voice to warn against lowering the project on Saturday.

Unions demand an emergency meeting on HS2 future HS2 cuts ‘will leave the north with Victorian rail’
Andy Street, the Tory mayor of the West Midlands, has also slammed the plan, and London Mayor Sadiq Khan has warned that it may turn the UK into a “laughing stock.”

Mr Sunak, on the other hand, said he “completely” disagreed with the critique, assuring Kuenssberg that the government was “absolutely committed to leveling up across the country.”

He emphasized a leveling-up fund for 55 communities, and he stated that the UK was attracting “billions of pounds of investment into this country, creating jobs everywhere.”

Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove characterized HS2 as a “important project” on Sunday, but added, “we do need to look at value for money.”

“The costs of this project have been significantly greater than originally estimated,” he said on Sky’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips.

He also stated that transportation links between and within cities in the North need to be enhanced.