GEORGE OSBORNE was pilloried yesterday for hawking high-speed rail contracts around China — despite Parliament having not yet approved the scheme.

Speaking in Chengdu, the Chancellor launched the bidding for seven contracts worth £11.8 billion to build bridges, tunnels and earthworks on the first phase of the HS2 route.

But the controversial new rail link between London, Birmingham and northern England has only reached its second reading in the Commons — leading former Tory cabinet minister Cheryl Gillan to damn Mr Osborne’s move as “premature.”

She told the BBC: “I wonder whether this still is a priority for the government considering that they have cancelled other very important projects in the north such as the Midlands electrification.”

HS2 Action Alliance spokesman Richard Houghton said the stunt exposed the high-speed rail programme as a “political project” to support Mr Osborne’s ambitions to become prime minister.

“This was meant to be a project that was going to not only build northern economies but also create jobs for British people,” he said.

“If the contracts are going to the Chinese it makes a nonsense of that claim.”

HS2 Ltd chief executive Simon Kirby insisted the final contracts would not be let “until we have parliamentary assent.”

Officials insisted that British firms would not lose out as a result of the decision to open up the bidding process to international contractors.

But Labour MP Tulip Siddiq asked: “Why are we going to China and not Chingford?”