Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
Main Page: Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe's debates with the Department for Transport
(5 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberAs I have already tried to explain, the costs are still under review and being finalised. I am certainly not able to give the assurance that my noble friend is after as to the routes in the north because complex rail developments such as these are interrelated and the true benefits—the true value for money for the taxpayer—is achieved only when they are built as one system.
My Lords, is there not a problem with the way we keep the cost of these projects under review? We had the same difficulty with Crossrail and, as I understand it, people have been raising questions from within the HS2 project since as far back as 2015, complaining about how it has been managed financially. Many of them have left and been required to sign nondisclosure agreements. Why are they being required to sign those agreements, and why can we not find a way for people who raise legitimate complaints about the direction in which projects are going to have their say, so that we can hear it?
The noble Lord is correct that a number of people who have left have signed settlements with HS2; these are settlements in the normal course of business, on people taking voluntary redundancy or otherwise. However, we do listen to people when they have concerns, financial or otherwise, about any of our infrastructure projects. I go back to what I said at the outset: that is why we need to give the new chairman of HS2 the time and space to do the work we have asked him to do. We will report later on this year.