Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of High Speed 2 on jobs in the West Midlands.

HS2 will help to promote economic growth and drive regional regeneration by bringing our major cities closer together, supporting job creation across the country.

HS2 Ltd’s "HS2 Regional Economic Impacts" report published in September 2013 makes a first attempt at quantifying the regional impacts of HS2. The report suggests that the increase in connectivity delivered by HS2 would make the economy more productive and thereby increase annual GDP in the West Midlands by between £1.5bn and £3.1bn.

HS2 will directly create construction jobs in the West Midlands, as a result of the construction of the line, the Birmingham Curzon Street station, the Birmingham Interchange station and the Washwood Heath Depot. The detailed breakdown of where the construction jobs will be located is publicly available in the Environmental statement for HS2 Phase 1 (Vol. 2), published in 2013.