Transport secretary Louise Haigh signalled she was minded to drop the previous Government’s money-saving plan that will see the line stop at Old Oak Common in North London pending a privately funded solution being found for the final tunnel drive and Euston HS2 Terminus build.

In an interview with Times Radio, the Transport Secretary today said “Look we’ve said before Euston was always planned to be part of the picture for HS2 and we’re hoping to make an announcement on that very soon.”

Commenting on funding for the tunnel and Euston terminus, Haigh said: “We’ll be making an announcement on that soon but it certainly doesn’t make, it would never have made sense to leave it between Old Oak Common and Birmingham.”

The final HS2 5.4-mile tunnel drive to Euston from Old Oak common is expected to cost around £1bn.

Over the last few months, Skanska Costain Strabag JV has continued with preparation works to launch the two final TBMs from the Old Oak Common Box towards Euston, despite uncertainty about the Euston terminus plan.

The cost of HS2’s revised London Euston terminus has almost doubled to £4.8bn since 2020, despite efforts to redesign and scale down the number of platforms to six.

Meanwhile, the industry’s High Speed Rail Group has argued that extending HS2 to Euston and Crewe could raise the project’s potential concession value to £20bn, outweighing the additional capital cost of delivery and saving Treasury and the taxpayer as much as £3.5bn.

In its submission to the Treasury ahead of the Government spending review it estimates increasing the scope of the network to reach Euston and Crewe would incur a further capital cost of £11.5bn, while raising the potential concession value to as much as £20bn.

This compares with an estimated concession value of just £5bn on the present scope of the project from Old Oak Common to Birmingham.