Sir Keir Starmer has delayed the opening of HS2 as costs soar and a damning report exposes the “litany of failure” behind the rail line.
The prime minister’s transport secretary described the project as an “appalling mess” on Wednesday and confirmed the remaining London to Birmingham stretch of the high speed rail project will be delayed beyond its target opening date of 2033. A source told The Independent “the original target can’t be hit”.
Heidi Alexander laid out how the Tories saw the cost of HS2 soar by £37bn between its approval in 2012 and last year’s general election.
And she vowed that those who may have taken advantage of taxpayers by charging inflated prices will face consequences for doing so.
Ms Alexander told the Commons she is drawing a “line in the sand” over the beleaguered rail project, as the government attempts to reset how major infrastructure is delivered.
Ministers are hoping 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.
“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,” housing minister Matthew Pennycook said on Wednesday.
And, speaking in the Commons, Ms Alexander said: “Today I'm drawing a line in the sand, calling time on years of mismanagement, flawed reporting and ineffective oversight.
"It means this Government will get the job done between Birmingham and London. We won't reinstate cancelled sections we can't afford, but we will do the hard but necessary work to rebuild public trust - and we've not wasted any time."
Shadow transport secretary Gareth Bacon admitted the Conservative Party made mistakes with its handling of HS2.
Mr Bacon said: "I believe there is a broad consensus in this House today on the central point which is that mistakes were made in the delivery of HS2.
"As Ms Alexander has noted, costs more than doubled, the project has been repeatedly delayed, and the pandemic completely changed travel patterns, undercutting the assumptions that guided the original plans and caused construction costs to rise sharply across the world."
Referring to the mistakes, Mr Bacon added: " As a country we must learn from those mistakes and we must not repeat them."
The result of two reviews into HS2 were announced alongside the Transport Secretary’s statement.
The first was an interim report by Mark Wild, the chief executive of HS2, who was appointed late last year.
He assessed the construction of the project’s first phase from London to Birmingham.
A second, wider review into the governance and accountability of HS2, led by James Stewart, also reported back.
It set out what has gone wrong with HS2, and what ministers can learn for future infrastructure projects.
It came as Tony Berkeley branded HS2 "chaos" and insisted it should be stopped.
The Labour peer, who served as deputy chairman of a government review into HS2, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It's chaos, and we haven't been told anything about it.
"Rishi Sunak, after all, cancelled it 18 months ago. That was the previous government but everybody in HS2 seems to have ignored it and the government's ignored it by continuing to pour money down it when they should have stopped 18 months ago and they should still stop today.
"They've wasted billions already.
"I think that the first thing to do is to stop digging when you don't know what you're doing and where it's going to end up, and I would put HS2 into administration. Let the administrators sort it out and then take a clear, simple look at what they want to achieve and get it done in a much more cost effective way."
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told the Commons on Wednesday that she is drawing a "line in the sand" over the beleaguered rail project.
As she addressed MPs, the transport secretary touched on allegations of fraud by contractors to HS2 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 also announced a new chair of HS2.
The current chair, Sir Jon Thompson, previously announced he would stand down in the spring of this year.
His replacement will be Mike Brown, Ms Alexander confirmed.
Mr Brown is the former commissioner for Transport for London, who helped to oversee the deliver 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 second phase of project was scrapped by Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives due to spiralling costs, a decision first revealed by The Independent in September 2023.
Concerns about the costs of the stunted project have persisted, with £100 million spent on a bat tunnel aimed at mitigating the railway’s environmental impact singled out by Sir Keir for criticism.
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