A planned high speed rail network with Birmingham at its heart will go ahead as planned despite reports that the project has been delayed, the Department for Transport has insisted.

Officials dismissed newspaper claims that the lack of a high speed rail Bill in the Queen’s Speech was a setback for the project.

In January this year, Transport Secretary Justine Greening set out proposals for the high speed network including a planned “hybrid bill” at the end of 2013 to give the Government the necessary powers to construct and operate the railway.

This would mean a Bill might be included in the next Queen’s Speech, setting out the Government’s legislative timetable, in the middle of 2013.

However, some reports have highlighted the failure to include a Bill in this year’s Queen’s Speech and suggested the project, known as High Speed Two or HS2, has been delayed.

A Department for Transport spokesman said: “These suggestions are nonsense as there was never any suggestion of including the Bill in this year’s Queen’s Speech. Birmingham will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of HS2 and it’s going ahead as planned.”

There’s no doubt that the £32 billion line, which is expected to create 8,000 jobs in Birmingham, has sparked opposition among many Conservative MPs.

The Tory grassroots website Conservative Home published an “alternative Queen’s Speech”, compiled in consultation with Conservative backbenchers, which included plans to stop “throwing billions at a high-speed vanity project” and scrap the scheme.

And campaigners opposed to the scheme have highlighted questions raised by the Commons public accounts committee, which subjected senior Department for Transport officials to a grilling about the business case for HS2.

Committee chair Margaret Hodge told officials their arguments were “shocking” after they revealed that the Department for Transport was assuming tickets for high speed rail services would cost the same as tickets on existing services, such as the West Coast Main Line services from London to Birmingham.

The committee was holding an inquiry to High Speed One, the high speed line opened in 2003 which runs from London to the Channel Tunnel, near Folkestone, Kent.

Speaking during the hearing, Mrs Hodge pointed out that passenger numbers for HS1 had been much lower than predicted, asking officials: “One of the things that went wrong with HS1 was that you assumed that people would switch to go on to the high-speed rail and they would not use the traditional or “classic” trains, but would use the high-speed rail network.

“Yet people operate on the basis of price – surprise, surprise – and the tickets are 20 per cent higher and they chose not to switch.

“In fact, you can read endless articles about people who have been really fed up because it takes them much longer to get to work now than it did before the channel tunnel rail link was in.”

She added: “We then look at HS2, and in your evidence you’re assuming 65 per cent will switch from classic to the high-speed railway. On what basis do you make that assumption, when, presumably, the price differential will still be there?”

In response, Department for Transport official Steve Gooding, the Department’s Director General for domestic travel, told her: “We haven’t actually put a premium price into the modelling for the high-speed rail service.”

Pressed to explain further, he confirmed: “We’re not assuming that it’s higher than the classic rate.”

Ms Hodge accused the Department for Transport of creating a “biased” model which exaggerated passenger demand for HS2 services by assuming tickets would cost the same as other services when, she argued, they were likely to be more expensive.

She said: “Your modelling is really quite shocking. It seems to me that you are biasing the modelling assumptions, because you’re putting in a modelling assumption that there will not be a premium price, to demonstrate your additional passenger numbers.”

She added: “You’ve got to build that assumption about there being a premium price into your modelling of passenger numbers, because that’s what went wrong ... that’s one of the things that went so badly wrong with HS1.”

Later, Mrs Hodge questioned Department for Transport predictions which show demand for long distance rail services will double, saying: “That is what you believe. I am gobsmacked by that.”

Joe Rukin, co-ordinator of the Stop HS2 Campaign, said: “While we are not sure HS2 was ever meant to be in this year’s Queens Speech, what we have seen is that so many more questions are being asked about HS2, with more leading figures taking heed of our message that there is no business case or money to pay for HS2.”

He added: “The Public Accounts Committee absolutely ripped apart the figures and justification for the project.”

MPs from all parties in Birmingham, as well as business leaders, are firmly behind HS2.Birmingham Chamber has warned that growing congestion means that rail travel in the UK is “a disaster waiting to happen” unless a new line is built.