Fury after HS2 costs hit £60bn

A CABINET revolt is threatening to sink the HS2 rail link.

Ministers are alarmed by the spiralling costs and are ‘increasingly minded to kill it off’, a senior source says.

Initially put at £33billion, the budget is thought to now be more than £60billion.

Treasury insiders admit the scheme is being added to an audit of capital projects in which its future will be assessed ‘from scratch’.

This means funding could be squeezed or stopped. An investigation being screened tonight claims ministers fear

that over a decade HS2 will cost up to £6billion a year – equal to the entire maintenance budget for the existing rail network.

Although ministers publicly insist it will go ahead, the Cabinet source told of rising dissent.

Opponents are said to include Theresa May’s deputy David Lidington, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss and Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom.

The source said: ‘There is concern across government at the way the project is being managed and the way the projected costs are continuing to grow.

‘We are not yet at the final go/ no-go decision but opposition is mounting.’

Last night, a Department for Transport insider admitted that ‘scoping work’ had been commissioned to cut costs.

The Department for Transport said it did not recognise the figure of £6billion a year.

Tonight’s investigation, for Channel 4’s Dispatches, claims that although published national accounts show HS2 will rise to an average cost of £4.2billion a year over the next ten years, ministers have secretly allocated up to £6billion a year.

This would bring the outlay to £64billion – £8billion more than currently budgeted and almost twice the initial budget of £33billion set in 2011.

The senior Cabinet source tells the programme ministers are now ‘increasingly minded to kill off’ plans for the line and ‘put the money into upgrading services used by millions of voters’.

‘The costs are spiralling so much that we’ve been actively considering other scenarios, including scrapping the entire project,’ the source said.

But a source close to Transport Secretary Chris Grayling insisted: ‘There is no possibility of it being either axed or any of the routes changed.’

The Campaign for Better Transport has urged the Government to invest £4.8billion instead in extending the rail network to help ‘the most disadvantaged’ communities.

The Department for Transport said: ‘HS2 is already under way with 7,000 people and 2,000 businesses working on building what will become the backbone of Britain’s rail network.’

Miss Truss is overseeing the annual spending review, which sets departmental budgets from 2020. She has said that the Government must be prepared to ‘junk white elephant’ projects. HS2: The Great Train Robbery, Dispatches, is on tonight at 8pm on Channel 4

‘Minded to kill off HS2 project’