HS2 could cost more than £100bn and may now not open until 2039 –13 years later than planned, the transport secretary has warned.
Heidi Alexander told the Commons she was “angry” about the “obscene increase in time and costs”, which she blamed on “the failures of successive Conservative governments”.
Constructing the line from London to Birmingham – including the now-abandoned onward legs to Leeds and Manchester, as first revealed by The Independent – was initially estimated to cost £32.7 billion in 2011 prices, but the budget has ballooned.
But Ms Alexander said the expected cost of completing the high-speed railway was now between £87.7bn and £102.7bn – making it more expensive than the Artemis II mission to send four astronauts to the Moon.
The timescale for completion has also been extended, with the new target schedule hoping to see services launch between May 2036 and October 2039, rather than in 2026 as initially planned.
The transport secretary further announced HS2 trains will run slower than planned to save money, with the maximum speed of services will be 320kmh (199mph), down from the original design of 360kmh (224mph).
Services will still be among “the fastest trains in Europe”, she told MPs.
Ms Alexander said the cost increase is mostly because of “past misunderstanding of the work required, underestimation and inefficiency, issues within the control of HS2 Ltd, some of its suppliers, and previous governments”.
HS2 was originally planned to run between Euston and Birmingham, then on to Manchester and Leeds, but the project was severely curtailed by the Conservatives in 2023 because of spiralling costs.
The TSSA, the union representing staff employed by HS2, called on the government to give ‘full and determined backing’ to make HS2 a reality.
“We urgently need to see greater connectivity at local, regional and national levels – the UK is already far behind other major economies around the world when it comes to high-speed rail,” TSSA General Secretary, Maryam Eslamdoust, said.
“What we are seeing is the impact of all the political flip-flopping on HS2 down the years. The public and the workforce at HS2 deserve so much better. Completing HS2 and connecting it with Northern Powerhouse Rail will revitalise train travel, which is the only clean, green mass transport system we have.”
Services between Old Oak Common in west London and Birmingham’s Curzon Street station are expected to start running between May 2036 and October 2039.
The high-speed trains will not run between Euston station in central London and Handsacre Junction in Staffordshire until between May 2040 and December 2043.
Handsacre Junction is where HS2 trains are planned to leave the dedicated high-speed tracks and merge onto the conventional West Coast Mainline.
Ms Alexander said the overall budget includes work at Euston, but the government was still seeking a private investor for the site.
Last year, Ms Alexander told the Commons she was drawing a “line in the sand” over the project, which she described as an “appalling mess”.
Earlier this year, it was reported that HS2 bosses could explore the possibility of making the high-speed trains slower as ministers consider ways to cut spiralling costs on the beleaguered scheme.
Government sources told The Independent if the trains were built to current speed specifications, they would either have to be sent to China to be tested on existing tracks already engineered to run at that speed, or wait until such a track was built in the UK.
They said it could delay completion by several years and cost billions more. But the TSSA, the union representing staff employed by HS2, called the suggestion to run trains at a slower speed is “very unwise”.
