OPINION
Labour must bin HS2 immediately (Image: House of Commons/UK Parliament/PA Wire)
HS2 is not a railway. It is a massive destructive building site and it will seemingly remain that way well into the mid-2030s. This is an unacceptable situation for the British taxpayer and for all those affected along the Phase One line of route, including my Mid Buckinghamshire constituents. Meanwhile the senior civil servants who’ve overseen this failure walk away with enormous wedges of taxpayer cash for doing little if anything to move this thing forward.
This week it was revealed by RAIL Magazine through a Freedom of Information request that not only will the final cost of Phase One final be over ￡100 billion, with ￡81 billion (at 2019 prices) attributed to constructing as far as Old Oak Common station in West London, but also that it’ll be 2036 at the earliest until this section is finished. As CEO, Mark Wild has inherited a project even more delayed and over-budget than his last one.
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The Department for Transport has flipped-flopped on whether Euston will even be built. Vast tunnel boring machines are sitting idle at Old Oak Common, operators left without the funding necessary to dig their way to Euston, leaving part of the HS2 workforce with little work to do yet still pocketing their taxpayer-funded salaries. Yes, you read that right - whilst farmers face oblivion from the Family Farm Tax and pensioners go without heat in winter, HS2 operatives and contractors continue to suckle on the taxpayer. An absurd priority for government.
Future passengers face the prospect of changing trains in Old Oak Common for already overcrowded local trains to the city centre, meaning journey times will increase compared to existing West Coast Main Line services from the very same London terminus station that the project has failed to reach.
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A similar omission is on the horizon further north, where at Birmingham Airport the plan to construct a large station looks to be in doubt. This is a slap in the face for everyone whose land would have been purchased for this purpose, just as my constituents have had to endure - many not knowing whether or exactly what their land will be used for, and indeed when or even if they’ll get it back. And it is just that - their land, which provides a source of income and a livelihood for many families, including in my constituency.
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While they face the degrading financial uncertainty that comes with losing their land, the construction companies are raking in millions thanks to the Department for Transport’s cost-plus contract model, which guarantees a profit at the expense of the taxpayer whilst reimbursing firms’ costs. This is why the project’s real cost has exceeded ￡200 billion; construction inflation and the general need to, in the words said to me by a former Minister of State for Transport a few years back, prop up the construction industry.
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This is devastating for the taxpayer. There is effectively no spending control mechanism. It is a project which, by its very design, benefits the contractors at the expense of hard working taxpayers who are currently seeing no benefit from HS2 and likely never will, given its reduced scope since work started and the increasing devastating impact it is having on areas through which it will run.
Yet another budgetary blow comes from comments made by Leo Quinn, who since 2015 has held the Group Chief Executive position at Balfour Beatty, which has been awarded contracts for the construction of Old Oak Common station and the part of the line through Washwood Heath in the West Midlands. I was shocked to hear Mr. Quinn answer “no” when questioned about the efficacy of restructuring HS2’s major works contracts in the interests of the taxpayer; his suggestion that “no contractor in the UK could actually have a balance sheet to deliver something of that [HS2’s] size” is equally alarming.
Not only does this bring into doubt the Department’s ability to renegotiate its own contracts - it also casts significant doubt on whether the project could ever be delivered in full at all when, as Mr. Quinn suggests, the private sector does not have the capital resources required to facilitate a project like HS2.
The question must therefore be asked - why should the taxpayer be expected to bankroll HS2, which has one of the lowest cost-benefit ratios of any major infrastructure project, when the Government is not acting in their interests through the restructuring of said contracts when deemed necessary.
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And it’s not just the cost. It’s also the lack of due regard for the statutory planning process which, because of poor planning within the Department for Transport all those years ago, is being run roughshod over by senior project managers. The deadline of next year means time is running out for the project to acquire any additional land it needs, which has led to attempts by the project to force incomplete and poorly-assessed plans through the planning system like the spring chamber site in Wendover in my constituency, where young children and elderly residents are at risk from HGVs passing through residential streets.
This is just the latest hammer-blow to Wendover, which among other affected areas has seen day to day life fundamentally changed by HS2, whether it’s the local church or the local cricket club, the very survival of both hanging in the balance because of chronic mismanagement and dithering by project managers who despite spouting claims to be a good neighbour are anything but. HS2 ruins the lives of everyone it touches.
Let’s face it, it needs to be confined to the dustbin of mad ideas that fed into a culture of “government by shiny thing” started by Lord Adonis last time Labour were in power. It’s never too late to admit and repent for mistakes. HS2 needs putting out of its misery and throwing on the scrap pile.