Transport secretary Heidi Alexander will announce the delays to the Commons today, saying there is “no reasonable way” that HS2 will be delivered on the current schedule
Reports began to surface late on Tuesday night that HS2 would face significant delays of two years, after two reports expected today gave scathing assessments of financial mismanagement of the project by the former Conservative government.
One report is an internal review conducted by HS2’s new chief executive Mark Wild assessing the construction of the project from London to Birmingham.
The second is a wider review into the governance and accountability of HS2 Ltd, led by James Stewart.
Criticisms will include:
- The infamous £100m bat tunnel
- Signing contracts when advised not to
- Drawing up expensive plans to redesign London’s Euston Station- which were then scrapped
It is now expected that the first trains will not run on the HS2 line until 2035 at the earliest- nine years late on the deadline that was first announced with the project in 2012.
Alexander will say that the Labour government is drawing a “line in the sand”
“Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been wasted by constant scope changes, ineffective contracts and bad management, […] It’s an appalling mess. But it’s one we will sort out.”
The original plans for HS2 saw the high-speed rail connecting London to Birmingham and splitting from there in a Y-shape to Leeds and Manchester. The Leeds connection was cancelled in November 2021, now ending at Nottingham. The Golburne link was also binned from the western line and in October 2023 at the Conservative Party Conference, then-prime minister Rishi Sunak announced the axing of the Crewe and Manchester leg.
Alexander will also announce a new chair of HS2 during the speech
Current chair Jon Thompson will step down in the coming months, with the former commissioner for Transport for London Mike Brown taking up the role, according to the Daily Telegraph.
Brown was part of the team(along with Mark Wild) that delivered Crossrail, the transport project now better known as the Elizabeth line.
HS2 fraud allegations will be investigated
“There are allegations that parts of the supply chain have been defrauding taxpayers, and I have been clear that these need to be investigated rapidly and rigorously,” Alexander will go on to say. “If fraud is found, then the consequences will be felt by all involved.”
Whistleblowers alleged that senior HS2 officials artificially inflated cost estimates to ensure the goverment kept funding the project, largely via taxpayer money. Former senior HS2 cost analyst Stephen Cresswell told the Sunday Times in 2023 that he was ordered by senior officials to ‘play down’ the costs of the now-axed Birmingham to Leeds leg.
“In my opinion HS2 is not an organisation that should be trusted with public money,” Cresswell said after the conclusion of his unfair dismissal employment tribunal.
Another case has been sent to HMRC by HS2 Ltd this week over potential subcontractor fraud.
A “casebook example of how not to run a project”
The damning verdict above on the HS2 project was given earlier this year, after a public accounts committee report found that the project had been so poorly managed that it presented “real risk” to the UK’s reputation.
That report estimated that HS2 costs could reach as high as £80bn; Wild’s report will see a revised estimate of £100bn.
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