HS2 Ltd: Consultants

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Right. My noble friend has come into this long-running play hopefully after the intermission but certainly after the first act. The point of HS2—you could say it is badly named—is to produce a serial improvement in train capacity between London, the West Midlands, the north of England and Scotland. That is the purpose of the scheme, and the result will be far more capacity, both on the new line and released on the old line in places such as Milton Keynes, to allow the economy of Britain outside London to reach its full potential in Birmingham, the north of England and stretching as far as Scotland. It is not just a high-speed line. You cannot judge the value of the expenditure merely on the elapsed journey time, though it is handy that the line is faster. Having started it, in whatever position it is in—we inherited it in a very bad position—the best thing to do is to finish it.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, as someone who has spent most of my life living in the north of England, I strongly agree with the Minister that we need very considerably to improve the capacity of railway lines to the whole of the north of England, north-west Yorkshire and the north-east. That clearly justifies completing the line, to Yorkshire as well as Manchester. The Minister has explained that the circumstance in which these consultants were brought in was entirely exceptional. May I tempt him, however, to talk about the Government’s use of consultants, which has expanded over the last 15 years? Does there not come a point, in dealing with outsourcing contractors and public procurement, when the Government should be insourcing some its capacity to examine what outside contractors provide, and not so often outsource it to consultants, who charge a good deal more than civil servants do?

[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.