HS2 Ltd: Consultants

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I certainly thank the noble Lord for his clarity about the purpose of HS2. I am not the best person to stand here and talk about consultancy expenditure in government in general, but I sympathise with him about getting long-term work done, because the cheapest way of getting it done is to get people to do it on an employment basis. However, if we look at what has had to be done by Mark Wild, under the supervision of Mike Brown and the new board, we see that a company that does not know how it spent its own money and what work was done for it, in circumstances where there are currently cost-plus contracts, is in need of serious help. That serious help, frankly, can be established in the short term only with the use of consultants.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, on behalf of these Benches, I also express my condolences to the family of the driver who lost his life in the tragedy on Friday—happily, a very rare event on Britain’s railways. On HS2, one of its principal contractors has warned that the Government’s steel tariffs are “ill-timed and unhelpful” and will “exacerbate” existing challenges facing HS2. Why have the Government chosen to make HS2 even more expensive by putting these tariffs on imported steel?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Fortunately, nearly all the steel for HS2 has already been purchased so, although it suffers from many things, it will not suffer from changes in steel prices going forward. If the noble Lord looks at either social media or at pictures, or even goes to see the route, he will see that a vast amount of steel has already been erected on the route to Birmingham.