Rail minister blasts ‘arrogant' HS2 over crisis-hit flagship project

Independent

5 hours ago

A transport minister has branded the company responsible for delivering the troubled high-speed rail scheme 'arrogant'.
In withering criticism, Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill said the flagship HS2 project had gone 'badly wrong', pointing out the Government could not say when it would open or how much it would cost, which was a 'terrible position'.
With new leadership in place, he pointedly remarked there would now be bosses 'who are communicative, collaborative, straight and honest'.
Lord Hendy also noted his own Department for Transport (DfT), which owns HS2 Ltd, bore 'some culpability' and noted the most senior civil servant at the ministry had retired.
His scathing remarks came after Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said an interim report by Mark Wild, the chief executive of HS2 Ltd, who was appointed late last year, 'lays bare the shocking mismanagement of the project under previous governments'.
The Cabinet minister said she was 'drawing a line in the sand, calling time on years of mismanagement, flawed reporting and ineffective oversight'.
HS2 was originally due to run between London and Birmingham, then on to Manchester and Leeds, but the project was cutback by the Conservatives in power because of spiralling costs.
The first phase was initially planned to open by the end of 2026, but this was pushed back to between 2029 and 2033 and will now be delayed even further.
In 2013, HS2 was estimated to cost £37.5 billion (at 2009 prices) for the entire planned network, including the now-scrapped extensions from Birmingham.
In June last year, HS2 Ltd assessed the cost for the line between London and Birmingham would be up to £66 billion.
Ms Alexander said the Government has accepted all the recommendations of a review into the governance and accountability of HS2 Ltd, led by senior infrastructure delivery adviser, James Stewart.
She also confirmed the appointment of Mike Brown as chairman of HS2 Ltd.
Mr Brown is a former commissioner for Transport for London, who helped to oversee the delivery of Crossrail, the transport project which became London's Elizabeth line.
Speaking in Parliament on the 'reset' of the high-speed rail development, Lord Hendy said: 'HS2 has gone badly wrong, and it falls to this Government to sort it out, because we cannot carry on like this.
'Currently, we can predict neither when it will open nor how much it will cost. That is a pretty terrible position to be in and it has to be said the consequences are as a result of actions taken by previous governments.'
Responding to a question from his Tory counterpart Lord Moylan on criticism of the DfT in Mr Stewart's review, the minister said: 'My own department clearly shoulders some culpability.
'He asked what has happened in the department and, although I do not think it is not right to delve into senior personnel, he will, of course, note that a new permanent secretary is about to be appointed, the previous incumbent having retired.'
Lord Hendy went on: ' One of the really important things in this is that, I think for the first time for a long time, we will have a chair and a chief executive of HS2 who are communicative, collaborative, straight and honest, and we can have a discussion with them about where this is going and what it is doing.
'One of the characteristics of this company so far, and of the Crossrail company for most of its life, is that they were both arrogant enough to believe that they knew what they were doing without any supervision and without telling anybody what was really going on.
'In both cases, it went badly wrong.
'Mark (Wild) knows that he has to change the culture of the company. There clearly are some good people there, but they need to be led and directed properly.'