It’s official: HS2 will cost almost double May’s £56bn claim
Government shifts stance over final cost of rail link after Boris Johnson admits it may be ‘north of £100bn’
MINISTERS have ditched the official £56billion price tag for HS2 after Boris Johnson said the scheme’s final cost could amount to double the formal estimate.
Mr Johnson’s regime has broken away from the insistence of Theresa May’s government that the rail line will fall within the £55.7billion budget set in 2015.
The moves comes after several senior ministers under Mrs May privately warned that the scheme, due to stretch from London to Birmingham and then on to Leeds and Manchester, was on course to massively overshoot its budget.
Last month it emerged that the new chairman of HS2 Ltd, the Governmentowned firm building the line, believed that the final costs could rise to between £70billion and £85billion,
Asked about the shift in the official stance under Mr Johnson, a Government source said: “It is important to be clear-eyed about how much this is going to cost the taxpayer.” As recently as last month, while Mrs May was still prime minister, Nusrat Ghani, her HS2 minister, told the Commons: “I stand here to state confidently that the budget is £55.7 billion.” Chris Grayling, who was sacked as Transport Secretary by Mr Johnson, had also insisted that the budget would not rise, saying: “I am very clear on HS2; it’s got a budget and it’s got to live with that budget.”
Now responsibility for the scheme has been handed to Paul Maynard, the MP for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, despite Ms Ghani, an East Sussex MP, remaining as a transport minister and retaining the other policy areas in her brief. The decision to hand the role to an MP representing a northern seat comes as a review commissioned by Mr Johnson considers plans to begin building the railway line in the north, rather than London, as part of a set of policy changes designed to demonstrate a focus on “left behind” regions and towns.
The Prime Minister has commissioned a review, led by Douglas Oakervee, a former HS2 Ltd chairman, to examine “whether and how we proceed”. Last month Mr Johnson acknowledged that the cost of the scheme will “probably be north of £100billion” despite the official budget of £55.7billion. He added that he would “hesitate for a long time before scrapping any major infrastructure project”, amid calls from several senior Tories for the scheme to be axed.
The shift in the Government’s official position was signalled by the first answer to a parliamentary question about the cost since Mr Johnson entered Downing Street on July 24.
Answering a written question in the House of Lords about the “total cost” of HS2, Baroness Vere of Norbiton, a transport minister, declined to repeat the £55.7billion figure, simply stating: “HS2 Ltd continues to update its cost estimates as the project develops.”
Grant Shapps, the new Transport Secretary, has confirmed that a “go or no go” decision on HS2 would be made by the end of the year.
Last week three parish councils in Staffordshire submitted a petition to Parliament insisting that tens of millions of pounds could be saved by relocating a rail infrastructure and maintenance facility currently planned for a site near Stone.
Some campaigners fear Mr Oakervee, 78, will be “marking his own homework” and is unlikely to recommend scrapping the scheme.
Conservative MPs opposed to the rail line suggested last week that the review set up by the new Prime Minister would be insufficiently independent.
Dame Cheryl Gillan, the former Cabinet minister who has campaigned against HS2 since its inception, said: “I think it’s got to be evaluated economically by somebody that has no connection to the railway business and no connection to HS2 in any way.”