Chancellor Sajid Javid is set to throw his weight behind the controversial HS2 rail project.

Javid is minded to support the high speed train initiative at a meeting with prime minister Boris Johnson and transport secretary Grant Shapps on Thursday.

Multiple outlets have reported that having reviewed costs and alternatives the chancellor will “broadly back” the high-speed line from London to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.

Shapps has insisted that no decision on the controversial infrastructure project – the biggest in Europe – will be announced this week.

It has been estimated the scheme, which was allocated £56 billion in 2015, could cost up to £106 billion.

The prime minister told the Commons on Wednesday that a decision on the project would be made “very shortly”.

He said: “I just want to reassure all of my honourable friends and everybody, whatever persuasion they may be about HS2 across this Chamber, that there will be an announcement and a decision very shortly.”

Some £8 billion has already been spent on the scheme.

The meeting comes as Javid has put pressure on cabinet colleagues to identify where cuts of 5% could be made in their departmental budgets.

In a letter, co-signed by Johnson, the chancellor urged ministers to identify projects that could be abandoned ahead of his first budget as chancellor in March.

The intervention was seen at Westminster as a bid to find resources to fund Tory election promises on infrastructure, health and law and order.