The Public Accounts Committee says the curtailed High Speed 2 now offers very poor value for money to taxpayers – and neither the Department for Transport nor HS2 Ltd know what they expect the final benefits to be.
In its latest report into HS2 and Euston, published on 7 February, the Committee points out that even including as a benefit the £11 billion in 2019 prices avoided by not cancelling the whole project, HS2 will only return between £1.10 and £1.80 for every pound spent on the project.
The report criticises cost escalations, saying HS2 Ltd has not been able to constrain costs in its main civils contracts and there has been ‘insufficient senior level focus on cost control’, although it points out that HS2 is now addressing this issue.
Implications of the cancellation of Phase 2a from the Midlands to Crewe and Phase 2b from Crewe to Manchester last year are still not properly understood by the DfT and HS2. The report highlights that DfT ‘does not yet understand how the high-speed trains will operate as part of th…
