Spiralling HS2 costs could drive up electricity bills for households

ELECTRICITY bills may rise as a result of works to prepare Britain’s energy network for High Speed 2, The Sunday

Telegraph can disclose. Scottish Power said it will require an additional £35million from consumers to increase the size of its power lines to meet the extra demand for power it says the scheme will create.

But the move, revealed days after Boris Johnson launched a major review into “whether and how” the rail line should go ahead, is being resisted by Citizens Advice, the official consumer watchdog for energy, over concerns that it would fail to provide value for money. And Ofgem, the energy regulator, suggested that it was minded to block the spending.

Today, David Lidington, who was de facto deputy prime minister until last month, declares that the case for HS2, which Mr Johnson has said could cost more than £100billion, is “weak”. Writing in The Sunday Telegraph in his first intervention since leaving the Government, Mr Lidington states: “Shouldn’t better cross-country rail connections, most obviously between the cities of northern England, and new metro schemes like that operating in Manchester, be a higher priority than new lines to London? As a country we need to be sure that we’ve got the priorities right.” Meanwhile, it can be disclosed that Lord Berkeley, the deputy chairman of Mr Johnson’s review panel has described HS2 as a “bottomless pit of a railway” and questioned whether ministers “misled Parliament” over its costs, which Theresa May’s Government had insisted would amount to no

more than £56billion. A formal application to spend £35million upgrading the energy network for HS2 was submitted to Ofgem by SP Energy Networks, the division of Scottish Power that operates large sections of the energy network in north Wales and western and northern England.

According to Ofgem, around £280, or a fifth, of a typical household’s dual fuel energy bill goes toward running and maintaining the network. A Scottish Power source insisted that the £35million would add 75p per year to consumer bills in a “worst case” scenario.

Citizens Advice said the redacted version of the application that had been made public failed to show that the planned spending would be “economic and efficient”.

Centrica, one of the energy firms that would have to submit higher bills to consumers, also objected.

Joe Rukin, of Stop HS2, claimed the proposed increase was the latest in a “massive list” of taxpayer costs not formally attached to the scheme.