Transport secretary confirms HS2 delay, calling the project an 'appalling mess'

BBC News

3 hours ago

Update:
Date: 13:09 BST
Title: Has the government reduced asylum hotels to 'just over 200'?
Content: By Tom Edgington
Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner claimed the government had reduced the number of hotels used to house asylum seekers since coming to power.
She said: '400 hotels [under the Conservatives] which we've reduced to just over 200 hotels in the first 12 months of us being in government'.
It's hard to test Rayner's claim though because the Home Office does not routinely make this data available.
Earlier this year, BBC Verify submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request for the data.
The response revealed that hotel use peaked at 398 in September 2023, under the previous Conservative government.
When Labour came to power, that number had reduced to 212. However, our FOI showed the number had increased to 218 in December 2024.
It is possible that the number has reduced to 'just over 200' since then - as Rayner claims - but this is not available to check on the Home Office website.
BBC Verify has contacted the Home Office and asked them to provide the latest figures.
Update:
Date: 13:05 BST
Title: Mistakes were made in delivery of HS2, shadow transport secretary says
Content: Shadow transport secretary Gareth Bacon is next up in the House of Commons to speak. He says "mistakes were made" in the delivery of HS2.
Bacon says costs more than doubled and the project was "repeatedly delayed". "It has long been apparent that HS2 was not going according to plan," he says.
He describes a report that was released under the previous government that raised "serious concerns" about the HS2 project.
As a result of that, the-then government announced the cancellation of the northern leg of HS2, with money being diverted to a "multitude of transport projects".
He concludes by addressing the planning system in general, noting legal challenges HS2 faced.
He asks whether the government is looking at ways to minimise legal challenges when it comes to national infrastructure.
Update:
Date: 12:58 BST
Title: HS2 project an 'appalling mess but we will sort it out' - transport secretary
Content: Heidi Alexander says the level of failure in the HS2 project cannot stand.
"We will learn the lessons of the past 15 years, and restore our reputation of delivering world-class infrastructure projects," she says to a relatively empty chamber.
"Billions of pounds of taxpayers' money has been wasted by constant scope changes, ineffective contracts and bad management," she says, adding that there are also allegations of fraud.
"It is an appalling mess, but it is one we will sort out," she adds.
Update:
Date: 12:55 BST
Title: Transport secretary says government accepts all recommendations after HS2 review
Content: Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander is delivering her statement in the Commons on HS2.
She says that a government-commissioned review led by senior infrastructure delivery adviser James Stewart was a "tough independent look at how the Department for Transport and Government delivers major projects".
She adds that the government accepts all of its recommendations.
She says the government are already delivering on those, especially on addressing five key areas. She lists them as:
Talking about a separate assessment by Mark Wild, she says she sees "no route by which trains can be running by 2033 as planned".
"It gives me no pleasure to deliver news like this," she adds.
Update:
Date: 12:47 BST
Title: Key takeaways from grooming gangs report - a recap
Content: Becky MortonPolitical reporter
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp quizzed deputy prime minister Angela Rayner on the government's response to grooming gangs in his first set of questions during PMQs.
As a reminder, a review into abuse carried out by grooming gangs in England and Wales was published on Saturday.
The government asked Baroness Casey to carry out the audit, examining existing data and evidence on the nature and scale of group-based child sexual abuse, in January.
Here are some of its key findings and recommendations:
For more on the report, you can read my piece here.
Update:
Date: 12:44 BST
Title: HS2 will be delayed again, transport secretary expected to say
Content: Pivoting to the HS2 update now, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander is speaking in the Commons - she's expected to says the high speed railway will be delayed beyond its target date of 2033.
There is "no reasonable way to deliver" the railway line on schedule and within budget, she is expected to say.
She is likely to say that that Mike Brown, the former commissioner of Transport for London, has been appointed the new chair of HS2 Ltd.
Update:
Date: 12:41 BST
Title: A deceptively polite tone to start - but it didn't last
Content: Helen CattPolitical correspondent
They started out with a deceptively restrained and polite tone, as Chris Philp raised the experiences of grooming gang victims and asked for assurances about the scope of the planned inquiry.
That tone didn't last.
The ensuing exchanges led the Labour backbencher Sarah Champion to criticise 'point scoring on all sides'.
As a former Home Office Minister, Philp was on solid turf prodding the government over grooming gangs and over small boat crossings, a situation which Downing Street has this week said is 'deteriorating'.
He didn't really manage to wrong foot Angela Rayner. As he is a former Home Office minister, it was all too easy for her to point to the Conservatives' own record and label him as a 'Johnny come lately' who hadn't solved problems when in power.
Update:
Date: 12:39 BST
Title: SNP challenges Rayner on 'disability cuts'
Content: The SNP's deputy Westminster leader Pete Wishart says the government is today introducing legislation that, he claims, will "push another 250,000 people into poverty".
He asks if Labour MPs will lose the whip if they vote against "disability cuts".
Rayner says Labour is committed to ending child poverty, and runs through measures they have taken on the issue, including "free school meals" and a "living wage rise".
She then accuses the SNP of "decades of failure".
Update:
Date: 12:36 BST
Title: Rotherham MP calls out 'point scoring' on both sides
Content: Brian WheelerReporting from the House of Commons
Silence as Labour's Sarah Champion, the Rotherham MP who has campaigned on behalf of grooming gang victims and had been calling for an inquiry, asks her question.She says she has been 'floored' by the point scoring 'on all sides' on this issue.
Update:
Date: 12:35 BST
Title: Lib Dems quiz Rayner on UK's position on Israel-Iran war
Content: Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper asks a question about Donald Trump possibly leading the US to join the war between Israel and Iran.
She begins her question by saying the UK "blindly followed the US" in the 2003 Iraq war.
If the US joins the conflict between Israel and Iran, she asks, will the Labour government promise not to "blindly follow" the US into war "again".
Rayner says the UK agrees with Trump that Iran must never have nuclear weapons, and continues to support a "diplomatic approach".
Update:
Date: 12:31 BST
Title: Starmer on his way back to the UK now
Content: Chris MasonPolitical editor
Meanwhile, here on the prime minister's plane, we are an hour-ish from getting back to the UK from the G7 Summit in Canada.
While Angela Rayner answers questions, Keir Starmer grabs a late breakfast after a few hours broken sleep over the Canadian tundra, Greenland ice and Atlantic water.
International diplomacy done - for now. There is a Nato Summit in the Netherlands next week and the Middle East related phone calls are relentless.
Domestic politics returns.
Update:
Date: 12:29 BST
Title: 'Johnny Come Lately,' Rayner gets in the final word
Content: Brian WheelerReporting from the House of Commons
Rayner dubs Chris Philp a 'Johnny Come Lately' as she has the final word in her clash with the shadow home secretary.It was a spirited debut by Philp but didn't really shift the dial.
Update:
Date: 12:28 BST
Title: I take no lectures from the Tories, Rayner says
Content: For his final question, shadow home secretary Philp pushes on scrapping the Human Rights Act.
Philp asks: "Why does the government side with foreign criminals and not the British public?"
Rayner replies saying Philp and the Tories had "14 years of failure" before adding: "I take no lectures".
This video can not be played
'Her mission to rebuild Britain is not going very well' - Philp jabs.
Update:
Date: 12:26 BST
Title: Fiery clash between Rayner and Philp over immigration and housing
Content: This video can not be played
In a fiery retort, Philp says he doesn't know how Rayner has the "brass neck" to say Labour is getting illegal immigration under control.
Amid raucous shouts, the speaker calls for quiet.
Philp says Home Office suppliers are offering above market deals to landlords to get hold of their properties for people who have arrived in the UK on small boats. He says this is happening while "hard-pressed" young people struggle to rent and buy. Why are you prioritising this, he asks.
Rayner says immigration increased fourfold under the previous Conservative government, causing a backlog that led to the use of 400 asylum hotels to house immigrants that cost £1m a day.
She says the government has reduced that number to "just over 200 hundred hotels" in the first 12 months of the year, adding Labour have started building the homes the Tories "failed" to deliver.
Update:
Date: 12:23 BST
Title: Jabs fly between the two deputy PMs
Content: Brian WheelerReporting from the House of Commons
Chris Philp jabs his finger on his folder as he accuses Rayner of having a 'brass neck'.
MPs on both sides seem to be enjoying this knockabout.
Update:
Date: 12:22 BST
Title: Philp challenges Rayner on scrapping Rwanda scheme
Content: Philp says that since the Rwanda plan was scrapped, illegal immigration across the Channel has gone up by more than 30%.
So far this year, 2025 has been the "worst" for illegal crossings, he says before asking if Rayner now accepts a removals deterrent is needed.
Rayner disputes Philp's claims that the Rwanda scheme deterred small boat crossings. "It's absolute rubbish," she says.
She says the Tories lost control of borders and Labour is taking control.
Update:
Date: 12:19 BST
Title: Rayner accuses Tories of losing 'control of our borders'
Content: Philp is up again and is now addressing small boat crossings across the English Channel.
He says a "significant number" of grooming gang perpetrators were non-UK nationals or were asylum seekers. He asks Rayner if she accepts the "small boat crisis" is an issue of public safety as well as immigration.
Rayner says her government has overseen major arrests to tackle people smuggling gangs. In the past month alone, she says, a ringleader who smuggled 4,000 migrants had been jailed for 25 years.
She then points directly across the aisle at Philp.
"He was the man at the heart of the Home Office when immigration soared, we lost control of our borders," she says.
Update:
Date: 12:16 BST
Title: Philp asks if PM will apologise for accusing Tories of 'jumping on a far-right bandwagon'
Content: Shadow home secretary Philp gets back to his feet for a second time and presses the government on grooming gangs.
"I do have to raise the language the prime minister used in January," Philp says, noting that Starmer accused the Tories of "jumping on a far-right bandwagon".
Philp asks Rayner if she will apologise for what the prime minister said.
Rayner says Starmer acted and brought actions in 2012, and says the data from the previous Conservative government was "inaccurate" and "not complete".
Update:
Date: 12:14 BST
Title: Inquiry into grooming gangs will have statutory powers - Rayner
Content: This video can not be played
Rayner thanks Philp for his "tone", adding it is right to look at what happened over the last few decades regarding the grooming gangs, to restore the confidence people need in the inquiry.
We will take that forward "at speed," she says.
She adds the inquiry, led by Baroness Casey, will be "independent, have statutory powers" and will implement the Jay report - an independent inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham.
Update:
Date: 12:11 BST
Title: Philp questions Rayner on grooming gangs
Content: This video can not be played
Shadow home secretary Philp begins by saying that yesterday he and his party leader met with survivors of the "rape gang scandal".
He says the survivors told them that authorities "deliberately covered up the systematic rape of young girls and some boys by gangs of predominantly Pakistani-heritage men".
He says the survivors said they would only have confidence in an inquiry that is independently led and has full statutory powers, and he asks Rayner if she can give those assurances.