HS2 could cost more than £100 billion and may not open until 2039, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has announced.
The Cabinet minister 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 £87.7 billion and £102.7 billion (in 2025 prices).
That means it will be more expensive than the Artemis II mission to send four astronauts to the Moon, which is estimated to have cost 93 billion US dollars to date (£69 billion).
Constructing HS2 from London to Birmingham – plus the now abandoned onward legs to Leeds and Manchester – was initially estimated to cost £32.7 billion (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.
Ms Alexander also announced that HS2 trains will run slower than planned to save money.
She said the maximum speed of services will be 320km/h (199mph), down from the original design of 360km/h (224mph).
She branded the previous plans a “massively over-specced folly, with the prospect of the fastest trains anywhere in the world tickling the fancy of Conservative ministers”.
Services will still be among “the fastest trains in Europe” despite the top speed being cut, she told MPs.
Ms 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”.
HS2 services between Old Oak Common in west London and Birmingham’s Curzon Street station are expected to start running between May 2036 and October 2039.
The high-speed trains will not run between Euston station in central London and Handsacre Junction in Staffordshire until between May 2040 and December 2043.
Handsacre Junction is where HS2 trains are planned to leave the dedicated high-speed tracks and merge onto the conventional West Coast Mainline.
Ms Alexander said the overall budget includes work at Euston, but the Government was still seeking a private investor for the site.
