Tonic for Crossrail 2 after Treasury bigwig gets project brief

Chief secretary to the treasury Liz Truss (pictured) has been given responsibility for Crossrail 2, in a shake-up of ministerial briefs.

It is the first time the £31 billion scheme, which would provide a link between Surrey and Hertfordshire across London, has been mentioned by the government since the general election.

It was not included in the Conservative Party manifesto and was omitted from the Queen’s Speech.

Crossrail 2 is now listed as one of Truss’s responsibilities, following her move to the Treasury from the Justice Department after the election. Her brief also includes HS2, roads, Network Rail, infrastructure spending, housing and planning, and development of the Oxford-Cambridge corridor.

A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “As with all transport scheme proposals, a thorough analysis is being carried out by the department to ensure it is a robust scheme.

“This includes examining whether the National Infrastructure Commission’s detailed recommendations on the scheme have been met.

“These considerations are part of a normal ongoing process, and the next steps and timescales will be decided as part of our analysis.”

In May, a consultant working on the project admitted Theresa May’s decision to call a general election was “a bit of a blow” for the project’s timetable and has meant a decision on its business case might now not be made until early next year.

The scheme resubmitted its Strategic Outline Business Case (SOBC) back in March and had been hoping for a decision over the summer.

But William Jackson, a development consultant for the railway, said: “We submitted the SOBC in March, then they announced a general election which was a little bit of a blow. So the approval of the SOBC is likely to be either in the autumn of this year or January of next year.”