HS2 Reset: Evidence to Transport Committee - 9 July 2025 "Total overspend on high-speed rail could be as much as 100%"

[slowroad]

In 2019 the National Highways (Treasury) budget for four A66 construction packages was £600m, which had more than doubled to £1.3bn in 2022 and was deemed to be 'poor value for money' to widen 18km of existing carriageway saving 12 minutes on a typical full length journey. The spending review did not provide an update on the 2022 cost. The outturn cost will likely be c £2bn. Can't imagine how they worked the BCR...

I wonder if A66 BCR was even worse than HS1 outturn, or than what HS2 will turn out to be? On A66, IIRC there are safety benefits as well as time savings. But the overall poor BCR indicates to me that it is likely the £ could have been better spent. Perhaps sorting out the worst sections, rather than doing the whole thing.

 

[Xavi]

I wonder if A66 BCR was even worse than HS1 outturn, or than what HS2 will turn out to be? On A66, IIRC there are safety benefits as well as time savings. But the overall poor BCR indicates to me that it is likely the £ could have been better spent. Perhaps sorting out the worst sections, rather than doing the whole thing.

I ageee, safely benefits can never be ignored, which it could be argued favours road upgrades over rail.

From my recollection, the BCR was marginal in 2019 and it appeared the £600m budget was a figure that made it work. Ultimately, other factors influence decision makers, one being elected mayors for combined authorities - more voice for your &….

 

[FMerrymon]

That's because Lord Berkeley said we are an incompetent country therefore we will do things an incompetent way and I will mock and frustrate every attempt at improving our general competence to typical European levels.

Berkeley has misled on cost history, has misrepresented benefits and original point of hs2. He is often on the TV news misleading the public on these points.

Just because the cost did increase doesn't make him right. He would never have predicted the huge increase in construction inflation or covid causing a hole in the country's finances.

That we have a supposed expert in the house of lords doing this is a huge source of concern.

 

[NCT]

Berkeley has misled on cost history, has misrepresented benefits and original point of hs2. He is often on the TV news misleading the public on these points.

Just because the cost did increase doesn't make him right. He would never have predicted the huge increase in construction inflation or covid causing a hole in the country's finances.

That we have a supposed expert in the house of lords doing this is a huge source of concern.

Absolutely.

 

[HSTEd]

Some of the problems were clearly ignored by Boris the buffoon (having to have the fastest HS line in Europe whereas it could have been HS1 spec speed)

That was Lord Adonis, who cooked up this scheme during Labour's damacene conversion to high speed rail (which happened about the time it became obvious they had no chance of winning in 2010..... funny that).

Most of the decisions taken that have led to this debacle were taken 15 years ago. It is my view that the entire project specification was flawed from the beginning, and poor management has only made it worse since then.

Whereas others including Farage would seemingly be happy to pay up the enormous bill to cancel the contracts and leave the part completed line to rot just to try and prove their point, "win" over a few NIMBYs and make us the laughing stock of the world, while not solving any of the capacity problems for N-S connectivity, with a full M6 and a full WCML.....

The last time this came up, the BCR of continuing with the project relative to paying the cancellation costs and securing the sites for abandonment was considered "Poor low value for money", even ignoring all the money that been spent before that.

This project is has just kept bleeding and bleeding and I see little evidence that this will stop whilst the project continues.

EDIT:
Corrected because its actually "low" value for money, not "poor" value for money.

 

[FMerrymon]

The last time this came up, the BCR of continuing with the project relative to paying the cancellation costs and securing the sites for abandonment was considered "Poor value for money", even ignoring all the money that been spent before that.

What's your evidence for this?

Also, something that Hendy made a good point about was that the way we assess bcr does not take into account all the economic benefits - it's purely for measuring the different options available to solve a problem. Since construction has started and redevelopment already begun, there is now hard evidence of that value.

 

[BottleTheWater]

I have started to wonder whether the business case for HS2 still exists.

• The economy is much worse now that it was ever forecast to be and the future appears to be stagnation. Throughout the 2010s the idea of stagnation wasn't such a mainstream idea, but instead it was about recovery from the Great Recession. This is going to have a big impact on a lot of the CBR of HS2, including passenger numbers and investment outside London.
• One aspect I have not seen mentioned anywhere is the idea that the legacy railways might become too dilapidated, similar to what is happening in Germany currently. HS2 could be similar to France in that regional services are overlooked and Germany in the sense that the legacy railways cause such delays and problems that it discourages travel by train.

Of course it is crazy. 10 years should be enough to build line from scratch.

HS2 and MAHSR were both initially proposed in 2009, though I suspect that the plans for HS2 had been designed before 2009 whereas MAHSR was a completely new undertaking.

HS2 started building in 2019 and finishing 2037.

MAHSR started building in 2021 and finishing 2027. Land acquisitions delayed the construction several years. But this route is twice as long, with many stations and a massive underground station in the most expensive part of Mumbai, and also using an indigenously designed high speed train.

 

[HSTEd]

What's your evidence for this?

The Report titled ' Continuing investment in HS2 Phase 1: accounting officer assessment (October 2023)" released by the government.

They put the BCR for continuing with HS2 Phase 1 at that time, rather than cancelling and securing the sites for abandonment at between 1.1 and 1.8.

That falls within the "poor" "low" value for money bracket used by the treasury for analysis.

EDIT:
Correction, the definition would actually make this most likely a "low" value for money, not "poor". I apologise for the error on my part.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Just because the cost did increase doesn't make him right. He would never have predicted the huge increase in construction inflation

His assessment was based on prices at the time, not now. He’s right based on 2019 prices, never mind 2025 prices.

The last time this came up, the BCR of continuing with the project relative to paying the cancellation costs and securing the sites for abandonment was considered "Poor value for money", even ignoring all the money that been spent before that.

That’s the real issue now.

HS2 was always a solution looking for a problem, like so many of Adonis’ bright ideas. The IET was another one from the Lord Adonis brains trust. IT should never been started. The Tories should have binned it off the second they got into power; it’s not like they didn’t have the electoral pretext for doing so.

But now we’ve started building it, we may as well finish it.

 

[Sorcerer]

HS2 was always a solution looking for a problem, like so many of Adonis’ bright ideas. The IET was another one from the Lord Adonis brains trust. IT should never been started. The Tories should have binned it off the second they got into power; it’s not like they didn’t have the electoral pretext for doing so.

You often assert HS2 as a solution looking for a problem, but the problem it has been presented as a solution for has been known about for a long time, and after exploring all options HS2 was concluded to be the best choice. As for the IETs, something like that was bound to happen sooner or later; the HSTs weren't going to last forever and were arguably no longer fit for purpose. Obviously the project has been a disaster and every failure and cost overrun gives even me a hard time supporting it, but calling a solution looking for a problem isn't the right way to describe it.

 

[FMerrymon]

His assessment was based on prices at the time, not now. He’s right based on 2019 prices, never mind 2025 prices.

He has deliberately misled the public multiple times in the media. For example, claiming hs2 had raised from 12bn to 180bn. His input should be ignored.

He predicted covid19, global supply issues and the war in Ukraine (pushing up energy costs) did he?

He should be removed from the Lords.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Jul 2025 ==

And

The Report titled ' Continuing investment in HS2 Phase 1: accounting officer assessment (October 2023)" released by the government.

They put the BCR for continuing with HS2 Phase 1 at that time, rather than cancelling and securing the sites for abandonment at between 1.1 and 1.8.

That falls within the "poor" "low" value for money bracket used by the treasury for analysis.

EDIT:
Correction, the definition would actually make this most likely a "low" value for money, not "poor". I apologise for the error on my part.

No problem. And also without level 3 land use not just in London and Birmingham but along wcml and the effects of the releasing of capacity on lines through new St.

 

[slowroad]

What's your evidence for this?

Also, something that Hendy made a good point about was that the way we assess bcr does not take into account all the economic benefits - it's purely for measuring the different options available to solve a problem. Since construction has started and redevelopment already begun, there is now hard evidence of that value.

It’s true that the BCR does not take account of all the economic benefits. But the “adjusted” BCR does take account of the main economic benefits that can be monetised. The adjusted BCR for HS2 was low and will be lower still given what’s happened to costs. There is no reason to think that any further non-monetised economic benefits would be greater for HS2 than for the other projects that could be funded using the resources allocated to HS2.

 

[Xavi]

Was the report about “Poor Value” after the axing of Phase 2a 2b which is where the real value was added? Phase 1 alone was never good value.

 

[Tetchytyke]

He has deliberately misled the public multiple times in the media

No he hasn’t.

HS2, however, have repeatedly misled people. Not to mention their contractors’ little spot of widespread and rampant employment fraud which has cost the taxpayer tens of millions.

Covid and Ukraine isn’t the reason why HS2 has been a cluster from the very start. It was way way way over budget in 2019.

He’s the only one in this whole sorry saga who has told the truth!

 

[FMerrymon]

No he hasn’t.

HS2, however, have repeatedly misled people. Not to mention their contractors’ little spot of widespread and rampant employment fraud which has cost the taxpayer tens of millions.

Covid and Ukraine isn’t the reason why HS2 has been a cluster from the very start. It was way way way over budget in 2019.

He’s the only one in this whole sorry saga who has told the truth!

Made out its only about saving 10minutes on a journey to London, yet 10 years before had written to the transport secretary to ensure enough capacity for freight post hs2
Claimed costs had increased from 12 to 180bn.
Said passengers don't want to London, they want to do journeys such as Birmingham-Nottingham, when that was what was being cancelled.

Just a couple of examples of the nonsense he's spouted.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jul 2025 ==

It’s true that the BCR does not take account of all the economic benefits. But the “adjusted” BCR does take account of the main economic benefits that can be monetised. The adjusted BCR for HS2 was low and will be lower still given what’s happened to costs. There is no reason to think that any further non-monetised economic benefits would be greater for HS2 than for the other projects that could be funded using the resources allocated to HS2.

No it doesn't. No level 3 land benefits which are substantial.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jul 2025 ==

You often assert HS2 as a solution looking for a problem, but the problem it has been presented as a solution for has been known about for a long time, and after exploring all options HS2 was concluded to be the best choice.

Exactly. The problem was lack of capacity and no room to grow, the solution was a new line. Simple as that.

 

[NCT]

There's a lot of fatalism on this forum when it comes to electrification and HS2. It's just bizarre. Lord Berkeley embodies that fatalism.

There's nothing about HS2's output specification that suggested it was doomed to be an expensive scheme. At the end of the day Britain shares the same laws of physics as continental Europe or indeed the rest of the world. None of what went wrong with HS2 is to do with the inherent concept of HS2, but various levels of mismanagement that can traced back to one thing - British exceptionalism.

The original concept of HS2 was to go for European standardisation - 200m units with 400m platforms, continental gauge so we can buy trains off-the-shelf. Maximising tph and optimising the alignment were learning direct lessons from TGV (and I believe with direct input from SNCF - things like don't build your version of Haute Picardies which only cost money and capacity). These were all sensible things. There was a lot of benchmarking against European schemes and at the time the £32bn later £55bn costs were already considered on the high side.

Somewhere down the line the pursuit for the standard product turned into an exercise of gold plating towards British exceptionalism. If it was found that 330km/h to 400km/h design standards drove disproportionate marginal costs then the correct course would be to go back to 330km/h (upon which the business case is predicated). Lack of experience and ownership meant contractors came back with overly risk averse and expensive proposals. Yes, the direct blame lies with HS2 Ltd here, but the root of the issue can be traced back to the Thatcher era where people were encouraged to go to the City moving numbers around and we didn't develop a generation of competent engineers.

Then there was all sorts of political interference, like the unnecessary extended green tunnels and ordering unnecessary cuttings. The then Conservative administration didn't have the spine to manage the conservative councillors in the Chilterns.

Then you have the Lord Berkeley lines of argument which essentially boil down to Britain will never deliver infrastructure projects as competently as the continentals so we should never attempt it. That is also British exceptionalism, an exceptionally pathetic kind at that.

 

[ABB125]

There's a lot of fatalism on this forum when it comes to electrification and HS2. It's just bizarre. Lord Berkeley embodies that fatalism.

There's nothing about HS2's output specification that suggested it was doomed to be an expensive scheme. At the end of the day Britain shares the same laws of physics as continental Europe or indeed the rest of the world. None of what went wrong with HS2 is to do with the inherent concept of HS2, but various levels of mismanagement that can traced back to one thing - British exceptionalism.

The original concept of HS2 was to go for European standardisation - 200m units with 400m platforms, continental gauge so we can buy trains off-the-shelf. Maximising tph and optimising the alignment were learning direct lessons from TGV (and I believe with direct input from SNCF - things like don't build your version of Haute Picardies which only cost money and capacity). These were all sensible things. There was a lot of benchmarking against European schemes and at the time the £32bn later £55bn costs were already considered on the high side.

Somewhere down the line the pursuit for the standard product turned into an exercise of gold plating towards British exceptionalism. If it was found that 330km/h to 400km/h design standards drove disproportionate marginal costs then the correct course would be to go back to 330km/h (upon which the business case is predicated). Lack of experience and ownership meant contractors came back with overly risk averse and expensive proposals. Yes, the direct blame lies with HS2 Ltd here, but the root of the issue can be traced back to the Thatcher era where people were encouraged to go to the City moving numbers around and we didn't develop a generation of competent engineers.

Then there was all sorts of political interference, like the unnecessary extended green tunnels and ordering unnecessary cuttings. The then Conservative administration didn't have the spine to manage the conservative councillors in the Chilterns.

Then you have the Lord Berkeley lines of argument which essentially boil down to Britain will never deliver infrastructure projects as competently as the continentals so we should never attempt it. That is also British exceptionalism, an exceptionally pathetic kind at that.

Indeed - the concept of HS2 is perfectly fine, it's the British inability to do anything that has caused the issues.

Problem: no spare capacity on WCML to accommodate future growth, despite recent upgrades
Solution: build a new line to modern standards. You aren't constrained by Victorian alignments so can choose a route that is optimum for today's traffic needs. Might as well make it nice and quick too. And make use of the opportunity to relieve other existing railways too (ECML, and to a lesser extent MML).

And then things started to go wrong...

 

[SynthD]

Quoting from Ianvisit's coverage of the testimony.

Mark Wild stated that while external issues contributed to the delay, the primary reason can be attributed to the fact that construction began too soon. ... Mark Wild said that the notice to proceed came too early ... It’s the age-old problem that politicians want to be seen in hard hats pressing buttons, not in offices looking at drawings and schematics.

I still don't think we're exploring how much of this is external to HS2 and its contractors. This destructive control happened from the start, the article mentions the lack of power in the bill, through to changing the route on the Treasury's say so and barely contacting HS2. I don't hold out hope for a select committee to investigate the negative effects of headline grabbing MPs, even though it is certainly relevant to their wider question of delays to major projects in this country.

 

[weeklycommuter]

Watching the session of the Transport Committee that took place on Wednesday 9 July 2025 on the following parliamentlive.tv link I noted the following:

HS2 will be built to be part of the national railway network, not as a separate network as some have previously suggested. The Rail Minister is therefore responsible for HS2 and not a separate HS2 Minister as in previous governments. Looking at HS2 as a separate network never made sense as the trains on HS2 will also have to run on the rest of the national railway network.

The strategic case for building HS2 is better connectivity delivers growth jobs and homes and ten billion pounds of gross value has already been added in anticipation of HS2 train services with a lot of new building in Birmingham.

The fundamental reason for building HS2 is capacity. The West Coast Mainline is full and cannot take any more freight or passenger trains. (The ORR’s rejection of the three open access applications for the West Coast Mainline confirms this).

The design is fixed now but HS2 is being built to an unnecessarily high a specification, for an unnecessarily high speed and this leads to more risk and significantly higher construction costs. It is hard to understand why the aim was for the highest speed railway in a relatively small country when the reason for building it was capacity.

Parliamentlive.tv

Transport Committee

parliamentlive.tv

 

[slowroad]

Made out its only about saving 10minutes on a journey to London, yet 10 years before had written to the transport secretary to ensure enough capacity for freight post hs2
Claimed costs had increased from 12 to 180bn.
Said passengers don't want to London, they want to do journeys such as Birmingham-Nottingham, when that was what was being cancelled.

Just a couple of examples of the nonsense he's spouted.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jul 2025 ==



No it doesn't. No level 3 land benefits which are substantial.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jul 2025 ==



Exactly. The problem was lack of capacity and no room to grow, the solution was a new line. Simple as that.

Land benefits are highly uncertain and would have to be enormous to rescue the economic case. The recent evaluation of HS1 would suggest need for great caution.

Because of the boosterish propaganda of proponents and premature political commitment alternative approaches to capacity enhancement was never realistically assessed (longer trains, greater use of alternative routes, more limited construction of lower speed bypasses, etc)

 

[Tetchytyke]

Indeed - the concept of HS2 is perfectly fine, it's the British inability to do anything that has caused the issues.

I don't agree. The very concept of HS2 was flawed from the very start. It was the usual political nonsense of needing something to be the biggest/the best/the fastest/the shiniest, and the usual nonsense of trying to make the project all things to all men.

HS2 wasn't just going to provide extra capacity on the southern WCML, it was going to transform rail travel from Manchester and Liverpool and Leeds and god knows wherever else. And it was going to do it all at once.

As I have repeatedly said, I still firmly believe this concept of HS2 was a solution looking for a problem.

However that's not to say something similar to HS2 would have been. Maybe a new line following a similar route but with a lower top speed and not quite so much hyperbolic architecture (e.g. that ridiculous ugly concrete viaduct over the Colne Valley). Maybe a new line but without a plan to operate two different types of train with two different loading gauges. Maybe a new line that accepted its limitations and didn't try to be a panacea for every single ill facing every single Northern city.

If the people pushing for HS2 had stuck to the basics, we wouldn't be in this mess now. It's not that the British are uniquely incapable of building things- the brains trust behind Berlin airport say hello. It's that you get half-brained politicians like Adonis and Johnson who seem compelled to turn everything into a giant ego-trip; everything has to be bigger and better and shinier. Again that's not a uniquely British issue and, again, the brains trust behind Berlin airport also say hello.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jul 2025 ==

Because of the boosterish propaganda of proponents

That's always been my biggest issue with HS2, if I'm honest. The propaganda behind it has always been ludicrous. It's as though they felt- rightly or wrongly- that if they didn't advertise it as the biggest and shiniest thing to ever happen, something that would absolutely transform the entire country, then they wouldn't get it built.

Clearly most of the propaganda has been complete nonsense, to put it bluntly. It's also been weirdly ephemeral. It was originally all about speed and connectivity but, when people rather uncharitably started saying it was £100bn to get to Birmingham 15 minutes faster, suddenly it was all about capacity instead; the speed and connectivity went out of the window.

 

[erikvd28]

HS2's July 2025 project update

 

[FMerrymon]

Clearly most of the propaganda has been complete nonsense, to put it bluntly. It's also been weirdly ephemeral. It was originally all about speed and connectivity but, when people rather uncharitably started saying it was £100bn to get to Birmingham 15 minutes faster, suddenly it was all about capacity instead; the speed and connectivity went out of the window

Utterly untrue.

 

[ABB125]

I don't agree. The very concept of HS2 was flawed from the very start. It was the usual political nonsense of needing something to be the biggest/the best/the fastest/the shiniest, and the usual nonsense of trying to make the project all things to all men.

HS2 wasn't just going to provide extra capacity on the southern WCML, it was going to transform rail travel from Manchester and Liverpool and Leeds and god knows wherever else. And it was going to do it all at once.

As I have repeatedly said, I still firmly believe this concept of HS2 was a solution looking for a problem.

However that's not to say something similar to HS2 would have been. Maybe a new line following a similar route but with a lower top speed and not quite so much hyperbolic architecture (e.g. that ridiculous ugly concrete viaduct over the Colne Valley). Maybe a new line but without a plan to operate two different types of train with two different loading gauges. Maybe a new line that accepted its limitations and didn't try to be a panacea for every single ill facing every single Northern city.

If the people pushing for HS2 had stuck to the basics, we wouldn't be in this mess now. It's not that the British are uniquely incapable of building things- the brains trust behind Berlin airport say hello. It's that you get half-brained politicians like Adonis and Johnson who seem compelled to turn everything into a giant ego-trip; everything has to be bigger and better and shinier. Again that's not a uniquely British issue and, again, the brains trust behind Berlin airport also say hello.

To an extent I think we're in agreement on this.
I'd much rather have a boring, functional, copy-and-paste railway than one that seemingly only exists to generate architect's competitions. By all means have one or two "showpiece" features (eg: a viaduct in a particularly sensitive location) if necessary, but they should be right at the back of the queue. Same with sustainability awards etc: the aim is to build a railway, not write an endless stream of self-congratulatory LinkedIn drivel.
I'm currently in Austria. Pretty much every major station I've seen that's been rebuilt in the last few decades follows the same basic design pattern, Wien Hbf is an obvious exception but that's allowed given it's the principle station in the country (and it works very well in my experience).

Standardisation is key: if other countries do something and it works, copy them. Don't try to make your tunnels slightly smaller diameter just to save a bit of material excavation if it's going to cause a number of operational headaches as soon as it opens, for example.

 

[FMerrymon]

Land benefits are highly uncertain and would have to be enormous to rescue the economic case. The recent evaluation of HS1 would suggest need for great caution

Listen to the TSC session and listen to what they have to say about the level 3 benefits. Since the project is going ahead, they can better predict the growth from the planning permissions, new buildings going up and corporate moves. The benefits for ooc and Birmingham are substantial and are only calculated over a 10 year period. Add in Euston, the towns and potential new towns along the wcml, the benefits to towns on lines into Birmingham, etc.

Listen to the latest green signallers on that hs1 report. All is not as it may first seem.

 

[stuu]

Clearly most of the propaganda has been complete nonsense, to put it bluntly. It's also been weirdly ephemeral. It was originally all about speed and connectivity but, when people rather uncharitably started saying it was £100bn to get to Birmingham 15 minutes faster, suddenly it was all about capacity instead; the speed and connectivity went out of the window.

The whole point of it was capacity, that's why anything has happened. Yes, they did talk about the speed a lot, but that was never the key driver for creating the project in the first place

 

[slowroad]

Listen to the TSC session and listen to what they have to say about the level 3 benefits. Since the project is going ahead, they can better predict the growth from the planning permissions, new buildings going up and corporate moves. The benefits for ooc and Birmingham are substantial and are only calculated over a 10 year period. Add in Euston, the towns and potential new towns along the wcml, the benefits to towns on lines into Birmingham, etc.

Listen to the latest green signallers on that hs1 report. All is not as it may first seem.

The questions is whether all of most of such effects could have been achieved much more cheaply by pursuing other projects. For example, other options existed for the redevelopment of OOC (lots happening across London!) and Birmingham (eg a new intercity station at Curzon st). Ditto those “potential” new towns. And corporate moves are displacement, not an overall benefit.

 

[HSTEd]

The whole point of it was capacity, that's why anything has happened. Yes, they did talk about the speed a lot, but that was never the key driver for creating the project in the first place

If the scheme is being specified purely as a capacity project, with no focus on speed, I very much doubt it would look like this.

The rail industry might have sued capacity arguments to get labour to reverse it's position on high speed rail, but it is clear that speed played a huge role in developing the project specification in 2009/10

 

[Xavi]

If the scheme is being specified purely as a capacity project, with no focus on speed, I very much doubt it would look like this.

The rail industry might have sued capacity arguments to get labour to reverse it's position on high speed rail, but it is clear that speed played a huge role in developing the project specification in 2009/10

A reason speed as well as capacity was factored into the specification was future aspirations to reach Scotland, and then 225mph (rather than 140mph) starts to make a huge difference.

 

[FMerrymon]

A reason speed as well as capacity was factored into the specification was future aspirations to reach Scotland, and then 225mph (rather than 140mph) starts to make a huge difference.

Plus, to ease the east coast mainline, it still needed to be faster via the hs2 route. Speed also helps relieve overcrowding on the cross country routes, where it could have been 90mins quicker for some routes via a change at OOC, rather than take the direct train.

Then there is the attractiveness of a faster journey over other modes of travel and the economic benefits of bringing places closer together.