Ministers to oversee HS2 amid warnings of ‘dire delivery failure’

Ministers will oversee work on HS2, the government has announced, as the transport secretary warned costs had spiralled out of control.

Louise Haigh has announced urgent action to bring the cost and delivery of the high speed route from London to Birmingham back under control.

It comes as the Sunday Times revealed leaked documents marked “official sensitive” say BBV, the scheme’s biggest private sector supplier, is “too large to effectively control”, while HS2 itself was unable to say whether the latest overspend was £10bn or £20bn.

The transport secretary, rail minister Lord Hendy, and chief secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones, will now have regular meetings with the HS2 team, under incoming chief executive Mark Wild, to ensure cost effectiveness, the Department for Transport (DfT) has confirmed.

Haigh said: “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 – and it’s dire.

“Taxpayers have a right to expect HS2 to be delivered efficiently. I won’t stand for anything less. It’s high time we make sure lessons are learnt and the mistakes of HS2 are never repeated again.”

It comes after the launch of an independent review into HS2’s oversight, to be led by James Stewart, an infrastructure expert, who advised on delivering the Olympics and Crossrail.

The review will present recommendations to the government this winter, DfT said, and will investigate oversight of major transport projects, cost efficiencies and HS2 delivery.

Contractor incentives are also being reviewed, the government said, which could see agreements being renegotiated.

Ministers have also confirmed they will not resurrect previous plans to extend HS2 to Crewe and Manchester, which the Conservative government scrapped, and will focus on safely delivering the scheme between London and Birmingham at the “lowest reasonable cost”.

Former Crossrail CEO Wild will shortly take over as chief executive of HS2 Ltd and is expected to be responsible for resetting the project, the government said, including providing an action plan to deliver the remaining work, with six-monthly reports published to ensure transparency.

A HS2 Ltd spokesperson said: “We welcome the secretary of state’s priorities for HS2 Ltd and are committed to working with the new government to improve delivery.

“We also fully support James Stewart’s governance review and look forward to his recommendations.”

They added: “HS2 Ltd recognises that there are many lessons to be learned from delivery to date and, under new leadership, are actively implementing the changes within our control to stablise costs.

“HS2 is a complex project of strategic importance to the UK’s rail network, which will not only provide better journeys, more services and fewer delays for rail passengers, but will unlock economic growth and tackle regional inequality.”