End HS2 waste

The Government is launching a much-needed review into HS2. Let’s hope that it goes the whole way and cancels this wasteful high-speed rail project entirely. Its costs are irreversibly out of control, and it is a project for a past era, not for the 21st-century world of digital communications and driverless vehicles. Seven years ago, it had a price tag of £33 billion. Theresa May later insisted that it was £56 billion. It could now easily be over £100 billion. Today we report that the energy network will require upgrading, too, and that costs will – as night follows day – be passed on to energy bills.

Writing in this newspaper, David Lidington, formerly deputy PM, asks whether this money would be better spent on local rail networks. Or how about telecommunications? Or roads? Britain desperately needs to invest in infrastructure to get ready for the post-Brexit challenge, and many travelling this bank holiday weekend will confirm that the country is hopeless at dealing with congestion, pot holes or the smallest variation in the weather. HS2 is a giant misdirection of funds.

If the review is objective, it ought to come to the same conclusion, which is why some MPs were concerned about it being led by Douglas Oakervee, a former HS2 Ltd chairman. It looks, some joked, like the establishment marking its own homework. On the other hand, Lord Berkeley, the deputy chairman of the review panel, is a fierce critic: he described HS2 as a “bottomless pit of a railway” and asked if ministers in the last government “misled Parliament” over its costs. That is a very good question.