HS2 opening to be delayed beyond 2033
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander is expected to tell Parliament on Wednesday afternoon there is 'no reasonable way to deliver' the high-speed railway on schedule and within budget.
The project has already suffered repeated delays and soaring costs despite being scaled back.
Ms Alexander will tell the Commons she is drawing a 'line in the sand' over the beleaguered rail project, as the Government attempts to reset how the UK delivers major infrastructure.
The Government intends to learn from the mistakes of HS2 so that they do a better job when it comes to projects like Northern Powerhouse Rail and the Lower Thames Crossing, it is understood.
Housing and planning minister Matthew Pennycook said there were 'serious problems' with HS2 'in terms of accountability, project overruns, costs'.
He told LBC the Planning and Infrastructure Bill includes a number of changes that will 'speed up the consenting process for nationally significant infrastructure'.
He said: 'Frankly, when it comes to HS2, in some ways we're a bit of a laughing stock around the world in terms of how we handle infrastructure.
'As a Government, we're absolutely determined to turn that around.'
The result of two reviews into HS2 are expected to be announced alongside the Transport Secretary's statement.
The first of these is an interim report by Mark Wild, the chief executive of HS2 Ltd, who was appointed late last year.
He will assess the construction of the project from London to Birmingham.
A second, wider review into the governance and accountability of HS2 Ltd, led by James Stewart, will also report back.
This is expected to set out what has gone wrong with the project, and what ministers can learn for future infrastructure projects.
The Transport Secretary is also expected to address allegations of fraud by contractors to HS2 Ltd which have emerged recently.
Earlier this week, it emerged HS2 Ltd reported a sub-contractor working on the rail line to HMRC following an internal probe.
During the statement, Ms Alexander is set to announce a new chair of HS2 Ltd.
The current chair, Sir Jon Thompson, previously announced he would stand down in the spring of this year.
His replacement will be Mike Brown, according to The Daily Telegraph newspaper.
Mr Brown is the former commissioner for Transport for London, who helped to oversee the delivery of Crossrail, the transport project which became London's Elizabeth line.
HS2 was originally due to run between London and Birmingham, then onto Manchester and Leeds, but the project was severely curtailed 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.
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.
Concerns about the costs of the stunted project have persisted.
Revelations in November last year that HS2 Ltd spent £100 million on a bat tunnel aimed at mitigating the railway's environmental impact stunned Westminster, and were singled out by Sir Keir Starmer for criticism.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Western Telegraph
11 minutes ago
- Western Telegraph
Keir Starmer chairs Cobra meeting as Donald Trump says he ‘may' strike Iran
The high-level meeting follows the Prime Minister's return from the G7 summit in Canada at which he and other world leaders reiterated their 'commitment to peace and stability'. But the US president, who left the summit a day early, told reporters outside the White House on Wednesday that he was considering strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. He said: 'I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do.' Israel and Iran have exchanged fire over the past six days after air strikes which Tel Aviv said were aimed at preventing Tehran developing a nuclear weapon. Iranian officials insist the country's nuclear programme is peaceful, and claim Israel has caused hundreds of civilian casualties. Israeli jets continued to attack Tehran on Tuesday night, but the Iranian response appears to have diminished, with only 10 missiles intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome defence system during the night. Mr Trump said Iran had 'got a lot of trouble and they want to negotiate', adding it was 'very late to be talking' but 'we may meet'. On Tuesday night, the president had used his Truth Social platform to describe Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as an 'easy target'. He later posted the words 'Unconditional surrender', prompting Mr Khamenei to warn that any American military involvement would result in 'irreparable damage' to the US. Amid questions over potential American involvement in the conflict, Sir Keir convened his senior ministers for a meeting of the Government's emergency Cobra committee to discuss the deteriorating security situation in the Middle East. The Foreign Office has evacuated family members of embassy staff from Israel, but has not advised British nationals to leave the country. Sir Keir Starmer at the G7 summit in Canada (Stefan Rousseau/PA) The department said the evacuation was temporary and a 'precautionary measure', with staff remaining at the embassy in Tel Aviv and the consulate in Jerusalem. A spokesperson for the Foreign Office said: 'Our embassy in Tel Aviv and consulate in Jerusalem remain fully staffed and continue to provide consular services to those who require assistance.' Downing Street would not say whether British nationals should attempt to leave the country. A Number 10 spokesman would only say that the Government's 'key message' was to 'follow the advice of local authorities on staying close to shelter'. Britons have already been advised against all travel to Israel, and those already in the country have been urged to register their presence with the embassy. The Foreign Office has also said land borders with Jordan and Egypt remain open, and consular teams are in position to provide assistance to British nationals who choose to leave Israel by land. The Number 10 spokesman added: 'This is a fast-moving situation. We are keeping all our advice under constant review and the FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) continues to plan for a variety of developments, as you would expect.' Sir Keir had earlier insisted that Mr Trump was interested in de-escalation in the Middle East, saying 'nothing' he had heard from the president suggested Washington was poised to get involved. Asked whether the Prime Minister was confident that Mr Trump would not involve US forces in the conflict, a Number 10 spokesman said the UK's position was still that 'we want to de-escalate rather than escalate'.
The Sun
15 minutes ago
- The Sun
Bungling civil servants face major probe over HS2 fiasco – as project delayed yet again and costs spiral out of control
BUNGLING civil servants could face a major investigation over the HS2 fiasco - as the project is delayed yet again and costs spiral out of control. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander today confirmed there is 'no route' to hitting the 2033 target for trains to run between London and Birmingham. 2 2 And she revealed the Prime Minister has asked the Cabinet Secretary to consider whether mandarins and public bodies should face a formal probe for their role in the chaos. A source close to Ms Alexander told The Sun: 'We will make sure this mess can never happen again. 'That's why the Prime Minister has asked the Cabinet Secretary to immediately look at the role of the Civil Service and the wider public sector in HS2 – including whether an investigation is needed.' The high-speed line was originally due to open in 2026 and stretch to Manchester and Leeds - but only the London to Birmingham leg remains, and even that now faces delays of two years or more. Ms Alexander did not confirm a new completion date or cost, which some suggest could exceed £100billion - far above the official £57billion estimate at 2019 prices. She said she was 'drawing a line in the sand' after what she called a 'litany of failure' spanning 15 years, with billions wasted on ineffective contracts, repeated changes, and scrapped designs - including £250million blown on two rejected station plans for Euston. Two reviews published yesterday laid bare the scale of the failure: one by new HS2 boss Mark Wild warned the current scope, schedule and budget were 'unsustainable', while another by infrastructure adviser James Stewart blasted weak oversight and inconsistent ministerial involvement. Ms Alexander said the previous government had pressed ahead with construction contracts despite a 2020 review warning against it, and that a Sunak-era ministerial taskforce for Euston 'never even met.' She promised a reset, with a new 10-Year Infrastructure Strategy, fresh governance boards, and the appointment of former TfL boss Mike Brown - who helped deliver Crossrail - as HS2 Ltd's new chair. She told MPs it would take 'a number of months' to confirm a final schedule and budget. But Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said the whole scheme should be scrapped, blasting: 'Let's scrap HS2, let's use the tens of billions of pounds we can save in the next decade to upgrade railway lines across the entirety of the United Kingdom to the benefit of many millions, and spend the rest on other national priorities.' Ms Alexander hit back: 'We are not going to be a country that spends over £30 billion on rail infrastructure but then never sees a train running on it... "
Spectator
21 minutes ago
- Spectator
How the SNP wrecked Scottish education
A small but not insignificant morsel of data on the state of education after 18 years of the SNP running Scotland. New figures show the gap between the poorest and wealthiest school leavers has widened to a five-year high. In the least deprived areas, just 3 per cent of school leavers fail to go to a 'positive destination', the Scottish Government's term for higher or further education, training, employment or voluntary work. Yet in the most deprived areas, areas like the former Lanarkshire industrial town from which I'm writing this, more than one in ten children leave school to what is euphemistically called 'other destinations', i.e. unemployment. Scottish Labour's education spokeswoman Pam Duncan-Glancy accuses the SNP of 'leaving Scotland's most disadvantaged pupils behind'. It's hard to disagree. Education used to be all the rage at Holyrood, the subject of speeches and pledges and reports and, most of all, photo ops. In 2015, early in her first ministership, Nicola Sturgeon – remember her? – gave a grand speech declaring that her defining priority would be closing the attainment gap between poor children and those from affluent families. These days Sturgeon tours the country chatting literature with minor celebs and touting her own forthcoming memoirs, but her legacy remains. And what a legacy it is. The attainment gap she undertook to close is widening. Children from the poorest parts of Scotland are 23 per cent less likely than those in the richest areas to leave school with at least one National 5, the Scottish equivalent of the GCSE. At Higher level (comparable to the A-Level), the gap is 38 per cent. Just 57 per cent leave school with a Higher and one in seven leave before even getting to that level. In reading, there is an 88-point performance gap between the richest and poorest children; in science, it's 92 points; in maths, 98. While the most deprived children bear the brunt of the Scottish education slump, no one escapes unharmed. Data from Pisa, an international study of school performance, shows that, almost two decades after the SNP came to power at Holyrood, test scores in science have fallen by 32 points and in maths by 35 points. Reading is the soaraway success story, with a drop of a mere six points in test performance. Children in Scottish schools are behind their English counterparts in all three disciplines. Little wonder the Institute for Fiscal Studies says 'something, somewhere is going wrong in Scottish education'. It's something, somewhere, all at once. Subject choice has narrowed under the SNP's Curriculum for Excellence. More than 40 per cent of pupils are persistently absent from Scottish high schools. A survey by teaching union NASUWT found 44 per cent of respondents north of the border suffered physical abuse or violence at the hands of their pupils last year. There were more than 40,000 violent incidents in local authority schools in 2024 and since the pandemic there has been a 76 per cent increase in offensive weapons in the classroom, with Police Scotland recording 194 cases in the past three years. Even in the most conducive education environment, learning can be very difficult for some pupils. In a culture of chaos, it can become impossible. Back in 2015, when Nicola Sturgeon gave her landmark speech on closing the educational attainment gap, she said: Let me be clear: I want to be judged on this. If you are not, as first minister, prepared to put your neck on the line on the education of our young people then what are you prepared to. It really matters. It does matter, but did it ever really matter to Sturgeon? A decade on, the balance of the evidence confirms that outcomes in Scottish education declined on her watch and that children from the poorest families shouldered the worst of it. Schools have been struggling to recover ever since Sturgeon made haste for the exit and a media career. As she offers election night punditry, tours theatres and playhouses with her novelist pals, and chips in the odd book review, it is difficult to discern where or when she put her neck on the line. Perhaps its high brass content made things difficult.
