The Transport Secretary has told the Commons there is “no route” to meet the target date of having HS2 services running by 2033 as she confirmed the project will be delayed.
The project has suffered repeated delays and soaring costs despite being scaled back.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said: “It’s an appalling mess, but it’s one we will sort out.
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“We need to set targets which we can confidently deliver, that the public can trust, and that will take time.
“But rest assured, where there are inefficiencies, we will root them out.”
The Cabinet minister said an interim report by Mark Wild, the chief executive of HS2 Ltd, who was appointed late last year, “lays bare the shocking mismanagement of the project under previous governments”.
She added: “He stated, in no uncertain terms, the overall project with respect of cost, schedule and scope is unsustainable.
“Based on his advice, I see no route by which trains can be running by 2033 as planned.
“He reveals costs will continue to increase if not taken in hand, further outstripping the budget set by the previous government.
“And he cannot be certain that all cost pressures have yet been identified.”
Ms Alexander said she is “drawing a line in the sand, calling time on years of mismanagement, flawed reporting and ineffective oversight”.
The Transport Secretary claimed the word “affordable” was “clearly not part of the HS2 lexicon”.
She went on: “This Government will get the job done between Birmingham and London.
“We won’t reinstate cancelled sections we can’t afford, but we will do the hard but necessary work to rebuild public trust.”
Shadow transport secretary Gareth Bacon said the Conservative Party had made mistakes with its handling of HS2.
Mr Bacon said: “I believe there is a broad consensus in this House today on the central point which is that mistakes were made in the delivery of HS2.
“As (Heidi Alexander) has noted, costs more than doubled, the project has been repeatedly delayed, and the pandemic completely changed travel patterns, undercutting the assumptions that guided the original plans and caused construction costs to rise sharply across the world.”
Mr Bacon, who sat on the Public Accounts Committee when the Conservatives were in government, admitted the party had made mistakes with the rail project. He said the changes in 2023 to cut the legs north of Birmingham and creation of Network North were the result of failures by the Tories with the scheme.
He said: “We also recognise that the path that we took to reach that point was not perfect, far from it, and I will not today pretend that the Network North was not a product of mistakes we made in the handling of HS2, because it clearly was. As a country we must learn from those mistakes and we must not repeat them.” Mr Bacon also asked Ms Alexander when the Government would publish details of travel infrastructure plans in the north of England.
Ms Alexander welcomed the Conservative Party’s acknowledgement of its mistakes while in government, and said it should apologise.
Responding to Mr Bacon, she said: “I was pleased to hear him acknowledge that mistakes had been made on HS2 by the previous government. I think he described the path as not being perfect, Mr Speaker, I would go as far as saying it has been a shambolic mess.
“He did strike a sombre note in his remarks, I would ask him perhaps to consider going further once he’s had the opportunity to read the full James Stewart report because I do think an apology on behalf of the party opposite for the mess that they left this infrastructure scheme in is undoubtedly warranted.” She said projects in the Midlands and the north would be published in the Government’s upcoming 10-year national infrastructure strategy.
