We Need a Review of HS2

Last week the Sunday Times ran an expose of the UK’s HS2 rail project. The programme is being severely curtailed now due to massive over spending against the budget.

Over several pages, the Times laid out a culture of overspending and bad financial forecasting, with those who tried to point out the problems often forced out or removed if contractors. The accusation is that senior managers knew that budgets were unrealistic but covered up the facts for as long as possible. Presumably that was to keep their lucrative jobs, and keep ministers happy. The thinking may have been that If the programme got to a certain point, then it could not be cancelled.

There was more in yesterday’s edition of the Sunday Times, including an interview with Stephen Cresswell, one of the whistleblowers.

This first phase was expected to cost £21 billion and yet his calculations suggested a fairer assessment was £30 billion — a huge discrepancy. “There were problems with the way the figures had been calculated and it was likely to cost an awful lot more,” he says. “I did the calculations pointing this out but I was told to concentrate my efforts on something else.”

Unfortunately this good piece of reporting did not get much discussion on national TV news certainly, perhaps unsurprisingly given the disaster unfolding in Israel and Gaza.  The report did say that the internal audit function at HS2 is looking into the allegations – but that isn’t good enough. We really need a detailed external review of what happened in HS2, to understand that specific case but more importantly, to see what lessons can be learnt that apply to other large capital programmes in the UK.  Maybe that is best done by the National Audit Office, although several ex-employees have written to the SFO (Serious Fraud Office) accusing HS2 of mismanagement of public funds, so maybe this will all turn more “criminal”. 

If no action is taken quickly, then we will have to see if Labour will have the appetite for driving a review if they do form the next government. After all, it was Labour and Lord Adonis, then Transport Minister, who kicked off HS2 and Adonis was a non-exec of HS2 for some years. But we really do need a review. We can’t allow huge expenditures where the people involved and responsible are pursuing their own goals rather than the taxpayers’ best interests. As Cresswell put it: “Costs, risks, timescales and benefits are being manipulated to suit individuals or organisational goals rather than the public interest”.

Another interesting point the Sunday Times highlighted last week is that Ministers appear to have lied to Parliament – or at best “misled” the house. Chirs Grayling was one, but a junior Minister is also accused.

“ On June 7, 2019, Cook sent a first draft of his report to Grayling. It suggested HS2 was billions of pounds over budget and years behind schedule.….  In July, the minister for transport, Nusrat Ghani, fielded questions during a Westminster Hall debate on HS2 before the Commons final vote on the bill to approve the Birmingham to Crewe phase two leg.  She said: “I stand here to state confidently that the budget is £55.7 billion and that the timetable is 2026 and 2033.” She repeated her assurances five days later, during the third reading debate in the Commons.

An FOI request exposed that she had been told 3 months earlier that the programme would breach its budget – so doesn’t that sound like lying to Parliament?  

It was good to see the shadow Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, announcing that a “covid corruption commissioner” will look into PPE procurement during the pandemic and the waste of billions of public money. In terms of waste, HS2 is at least on that scale, so surely that also deserves a very thorough and independent look at what happened there?