Spending watchdog says cancellation of HS2 northern leg raises urgent questions

The cancellation of the northern leg of HS2 has raised “urgent unanswered questions” and the government does not yet understand how the London to Birmingham section of the high-speed railway will now function, according to a damning report from parliament’s spending watchdog.

The public accounts committee of MPs said the London-Birmingham line will be “very poor value for money”with costs now forecast to significantly outweigh the benefits.

The cross-party committee said many ramifications of the decision remained unknown, including the impact on other promised rail schemes and how land compulsorily bought to build north of Birmingham would be disposed of.

The report added, “Crucially, the Department for Transport does not yet understand how HS2 will operate as a functioning railway following recent changes.”

It said issues included how the HS2 line will connect to the West Coast Mainline, with new HS2 trains unable to run as fast as the tilting Pendolino trains on the West Coast Mainline’s curving tracks.

In announcing the cancellation, the Prime Minister also said the final few miles of HS2 into London Euston and the station redevelopment would have to be built with private investment. However the committee said they were “highly sceptical” that private funding would be found for the terminus, and the government did not yet have a “plausible proposition”.

They warned that there were “urgent decisions the department must make” on Euston or it would incur much greater costs from stopping and restarting work.

Meg Hillier, chair of the committee, said, “The decision to cancel HS2’s northern leg was a watershed moment that raises urgent and unanswered questions, laid out in our report.

“What happens now to the phase two land, some of which has been compulsorily purchased? Can we seriously be actively working towards a situation where our high-speed trains are forced to run slower than existing ones when they hit older track?”

She said that after a decade of warnings from the public accounts committee over soaring costs of HS2, the government was “locked into the costly completion of a curtailed rump of a project”.

The final costs have not been confirmed but HS2 executive chair Sir Jon Thompson said last month that the London-Birmingham line’s costs were now an estimated £67bn at current prices. The phase one budget was £44.6bn in 2019 prices.

A spokesperson for HS2 said “We’ve been clear about our cost challenges, which have been compounded by significant levels of inflation. HS2 is now under new leadership and implementing changes across the programme aimed at controlling costs and learning the lessons of the past.”

A DfT spokesperson said “We disagree with the committee’s assessment. Our plans for Euston have already received extensive support from the private sector… we have repeatedly made clear we will continue to deliver HS2 at the lowest reasonable cost, in a way that provides value for taxpayers.”

Work on the first phase of HS2 beyond Euston is continuing, with significant milestones including the start of construction of Birmingham’s new Curzon Street station and the main Chilterns tunnels almost excavated.

Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said “The Oakervee Review, published when Rishi Sunak was chancellor, made clear it was the northern sections of the route to Leeds and Manchester which justified the cost of the section into London. Instead, the north is paying the price of having to placate vociferous local opponents with expensive tunnels through the Chilterns.”

Henri Murison is speaking at Interchange which takes place at Manchester Central on 27/28 February. You’ll find full details including how to book your free place at Interchange-uk.com