HS2 could cost more than £100 billion, may not open until 2039, will have trains that run 11% slower than planned, and is too expensive to cancel entirely, MPs have been told.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told the Commons she was “angry” about the “obscene increase in time and costs”, which she blamed on “the failures of successive Conservative governments”.
She said the expected cost of completing the high-speed railway was between £87.7bn and £102.7bn, in 2025 prices.
Constructing the line from London to Birmingham – plus the now abandoned onward legs to Leeds and Manchester – was initially estimated to cost £32.7bn in 2011 prices, but the budget has spiralled.
Services were planned to launch in 2026, but the new target schedule is between May 2036 and October 2039.
Alexander also announced that HS2 trains will run slower than planned to save money.
She said the maximum speed of services will be 199mph, down from the original design of 224mph.
Services will still be among “the fastest trains in Europe”, she told MPs.
Alexander said the cost increase is mostly because of “past misunderstanding of the work required, underestimation and inefficiency, issues within the control of HS2 Ltd, some of its suppliers, and previous governments”.
She said: “I realise that there will be those who will say this is all too much and we should just cancel the whole thing.
“However, I can confirm today that it could cost almost as much to cancel the line as it would to finish it, while delivering none of the benefits, with half-finished structures strewn across the English countryside, a relic to what could have been.”
The minister said the previous plans for trains to run at 224mph were “massively over-specced folly, with the prospect of the fastest trains anywhere in the world tickling the fancy of Conservative ministers”.
She added: “Previous prime ministers, in my view, created the world’s most expensive slow-motion car crash, and they barely batted an eyelid.”
