Ministers are taking greater oversight of HS2 in a bid to tackle \u201cdire\u201d project delivery, the transport secretary has announced.<\/p>\n
Regular meetings among top ministers was among a raft of measures promised by Louise Haigh yesterday (20 October), as she warned the cost of the rail mega-project has risen uncontrollably.<\/p>\n
Haigh pledged that meetings with rail minister Lord Hendy and chief secretary to the treasury Darren Jones would aim to produce greater accountability and deliver the railway more cost-effectively.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cIt has long been clear that the costs of HS2 have been allowed to spiral out of control, but since becoming transport secretary I have seen up close the scale of failure in project delivery \u2013 and it\u2019s dire.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s high time we make sure lessons are learnt and the mistakes of HS2 are never repeated again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jon Thompson, chair of HS2 Ltd (the company responsible for developing the high-speed line) said in January<\/a> that the cost of delivering the London-Birmingham route might reach up to \u00a367bn in 2023\/24 prices – up from the original estimate of \u00a337.5bn in 2009 prices.<\/p>\n Haigh also announced an independent review into the delivery of major transport projects, which would draw mainly on the experience of building HS2.<\/p>\n The Major Transport Projects Governance and Assurance review, led by infrastructure consultant James Stewart, is due to provide recommendations to government this winter.<\/p>\n It will investigate the effectiveness of cost forecasting and reporting and offer suggestions to make costs more efficient, both on the rest of HS2 and on future projects.<\/p>\n The Department for Transport emphasised it would not revive the rail line\u2019s planned second leg from Birmingham to Manchester, which former prime minister Rishi Sunak cancelled in October 2023<\/a>.<\/p>\n Haigh also emphasised ongoing efforts to renegotiate contracts with the main HS2 contractors, which Thompson revealed to the Public Accounts Committee last November<\/a>.<\/p>\n Thompson said at the time he would consider offering those contractors higher profit margins if they lowered overall cost.<\/p>\n He later warned during a transport select committee hearing that although his organisation is attempting to renegotiate contracts, he could not guarantee they would be able to reduce the cost.<\/p>\n An HS2 Ltd spokesperson said the contracts were designed to reduce the construction industry\u2019s risk exposure in the wake of Carillion\u2019s collapse<\/a> in 2018.<\/p>\n They added the organisation is working with its supply chain to improve incentives in contracts to deliver better value for money.<\/p>\n