Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent estimate she has made of the (a) cost of building HS2 and (b) impact of HS2 on economic growth in the next 10 years; and what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of the lessons learned from the construction of Crossrail.

HS2 has faced increases in costs since delivery started and this needs to end and the programme must be brought under control. The Secretary of State has asked Mark Wild, the new CEO of HS2 Ltd, to review the remaining scope, the cost and schedule needed to complete phase 1 of the programme, and advise the government on what is needed.

Despite its challenges, HS2 is delivering, and will deliver long-term benefits for people and places. The programme is currently supporting over 31,700 jobs, and it will support wider economic growth, including the delivery of tens of thousands of new homes. A report commissioned by HS2, ‘From Trains to Cranes’, included analysis estimating that HS2 will drive a £10 billion annual uplift within the West Midlands area over the next 10 years (https://www.hs2.org.uk/about-us/our-documents/from-trains-to-cranes-hs2-and-the-west-midlands-development-boom/).

Action is being taken to learn lessons from Phase 1 of HS2, as well as previous programmes such as Crossrail. The Department has commissioned an independent review of the governance and assurance of the Department’s major infrastructure projects, drawing primarily on the experiences of HS2. The review, which is led by James Stewart, is part of the Department’s on-going programme of work to learn lessons from HS2 and its other major projects, such as Crossrail.