HS2 Reset

Lord Harper Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I am sorry. That is a slip of the tongue caused by looking at my notes. I should have said on time and on budget. We do not always do them badly.

If noble Lords look at the history of HS2 they will see not limited scope changes but enormous scope changes with miles of the railway being put into tunnels and some technical specifications that, now they are being contemplated, do not look half as clever as they did when somebody suggested the highest-speed high-speed railway in the world, which therefore has to go in very straight lines and might disturb bats and need a bat tunnel when a more modest railway would have gone around that issue rather than straight through it.

I have to say to my noble friend that it is not always true that the Victorians got it right, and I am sure that this must have happened to previous Transport Ministers too. When I got to Network Rail, I remarked that Brunel’s Great Western Railway cost three times what he suggested it would, and about a week later I got a letter in green ink several pages long from a retired engineer, who said that I was entirely wrong and had no idea what I was talking about: it was actually four times more expensive.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

When I was appointed to lead the Department for Transport, HS2 was already not in great shape, as is well known. I immediately implemented some changes to get a grip of the project by focusing the company on cost control, starting work to renegotiate those big civil contracts that the Minister referred to and cancelling the second phase—which, although controversial at the time, I notice the present Government have not changed—which freed up money to spend on projects across the country. The final thing was to appoint Mark Wild as the new chief executive. I am confident that, with his record in delivering the Elizabeth line, he will achieve great things.

I will ask the Minister two questions. First, I listened carefully to what he said about Euston. Of course, I worked closely with him in his previous incarnation as the chairman of the Euston partnership. Refocusing that as a development-led project with more housing, more business space, and more contribution from private sector investment and less from the taxpayer is the right thing. I am pleased with the progress that has been made. He said he would come back to your Lordships’ House “in short order”; can he give us a bit more detail about what that means? Is that before the Summer Recess or after? I would like to hear more detail.

Secondly, the Minister also referred to the main works civil contracts. We started the work on renegotiating them. Can he say a little more about the progress that has been made? I recognise there is some commercial confidentiality involved there. It was referred to in James Stewart’s report, and it is important to get value for the taxpayer.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for the decision to appoint Mark Wild, which was obviously a good thing. The noble Lord is absolutely right that he did take some action. In the light of what has been discovered since, we could question how much action should have been taken, because this Government have clearly now taken some really strong action. In particular, we have had a serious look at governance. As a consequence, there is a new chair and there will no doubt be a new board in due course. That is one of the issues that has needed attention for some time.

I would be less complimentary about the cancellation of phase 2, which was pre-emptory. As for freeing up money, there was no money associated with phase 2. It is true that it would have cost money had it been delivered, but it was a delusion for many parts of the country. The Network North document promised everything to everybody without evidently having money in the short and medium term to deliver it. But everybody has had a part in this, and the truth is that this Government are committing themselves to this fundamental reset. Through that, we will get phase 1 to Birmingham and Old Oak Common and Euston done.

The Government are moving fast on Euston. I doubt we will be able to put anything in front of the House before the Summer Recess, but as soon as we are able to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and I will come back about it. The noble Lord is certainly right about the main works civil contracts, but in order to have a reset of those you actually need to know where the project is. If you do not know where the project is and nobody can accurately say how much has been delivered then trying to negotiate your way out of those circumstances is really quite hopeless. Mark Wild is undertaking a granular review of how much has been constructed and how much value has been created through its construction. The noble Lord is right that we have to engage in discussion with the main works civil contractors and their consortia. We will do that in due course, but we first have to know where the project is in order to baseline those discussions.