The HS2 high speed line would have provided better value for money for taxpayers if it had not been designed to allow trains to go so fast, according to the rail minister.Lord Hendy made the frank admission as he set out the Labour government’s aim of getting the costs and timeline of HS2 under control.
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00:00This new government has to get this project, the phase one of this project, under control.
00:05One of the best things that I've done since I took this role was last Monday,
00:11when I went down to Old Oak Common, not just because the government's going to fund the construction of Tunnel C Euston,
00:21which was in the autumn statement, but also because it introduced Mark Wilde, who is the new chief executive.
00:27I think that's a really positive decision, and I welcomed him.
00:32I know him because he's the guy who effectively brought Crossrail back from a very bad position and put it into service as the Elizabeth line.
00:42Now, I have to say, HS2's phase one is a materially bigger job, so he'll need both himself and a team to do it.
00:51But we have to get that project back under – we've got to understand how much it's going to cost, how long it's going to take, and when it's going to open.
00:59To be in that position is profoundly unsatisfactory, but actually we have a lot of faith in Mark and the team that he'll assemble to do that.
01:08We also need more ministerial scrutiny of this than has occurred for some time.
01:14I was around long enough to have been at least party to the previous government's ministerial task force, but it sort of petered out about four years ago,
01:24and it doesn't seem to have been the subject in the last years of the last government of significant ministerial attention.
01:32And the Secretary of State and I are certainly going to give it ministerial attention because it's the largest construction project in the country.
01:39It's not satisfactory to have a project where you can't say with certainty how much it's going to cost and how long it's going to take, and that we have to rectify.
01:49We have to rectify it because we're not going to be very persuasive to the Treasury and to the Chancellor and to other parts of government about doing any more
01:58until we can at least show that we've got this properly under control, and we are absolutely determined to do that.