The High Speed Two programme aims to construct a new high-speed,
high-capacity railway between London, Leeds and Manchester, via
the West Midlands. Given the final go ahead by Government last
month after a period of uncertainty, planned new railways will
join with the existing rail network to enable journeys to
Liverpool, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
It is the government’s largest infrastructure programme by value,
and is an enormously complex project. The Department for
Transport is the programme’s sponsor, responsible for funding and
overseeing delivery of the project by HS2 Limited – an
arm’s-length body of the Department.
The National Audit Office published its latest progress update on
High Speed 2 in January – its fourth report on the project.
The report found that DfT, HS2 Ltd and government more
widely underestimated the complexity of the programme, leading to
overly optimistic budgets and delivery dates. It found that, in
not openly recognising the programme’s unique challenges from the
outset, the Department and HS2 Ltd have not adequately
managed the risks to value for large sums of taxpayers’
money.
Tomorrow, Wednesday 4th March 2020, in its first evidence hearing
of the new Parliament, the Committee will question officials from
HS2 Ltd and the Department of Transport on the project’s
budgetary and schedule overruns, transparency between the
Department and Parliament, and how the Government intends to
prevent similar overruns in the next stages of the project.
The Committee will also explore how effectively the current
accountability structures for big infrastructure projects like
HS2 are working, and what processes are in place to monitor
the performance of the programme’s contractors.
Chair's comments
, Chair of the Committee
said:
“The PAC is back and starting as we mean to go on: looking at
the spending and management of a massive Government project.
HS2 has already overrun on time and budget, before it’s really
begun. We’ll be asking DfT officials and HS2 Ltd how they are
going to make up the lost time and money, and deliver on the
many promises of High Speed 2.”
The new Chair of the Commons Transport Committee, , is expected to “guest” at
this PAC hearing. The Committee will announce its further future
programme and priorities for this Parliament shortly.
Witnesses
At 2.30pm
Wednesday 4 March, Committee Room 8, Palace of Westminster
-
, Permanent
Secretary, Department for Transport
- Mark Thurston, Chief Executive Officer, HS2 Ltd
- Clive Maxwell, Director General, High Speed and Major Rail
Projects, Department for Transport
- Michael Bradley, Chief Financial Officer, HS2 Ltd
