HS2 boss says cost increase is ‘terrible news’

Neil Lancefield, Press Association Transport Correspondent and Mark Mansfield

HS2’s boss has described the increase in the cost of the project as “terrible news”.

Chief executive Mark Wild told MPs “the budget’s doubled in five years”.

The Government announced on Tuesday that the expected cost of completing the high-speed railway was between £87.7 billion and £102.7 billion (in 2025 prices).

Mr Wild told the Transport Select Committee on Wednesday: “Let’s just acknowledge this is terrible news, and we have to really think about the reasons for that.”

The new target opening schedule for HS2 is between May 2036 and October 2039.

Mr Wild said he is “very confident that these bookends of time and cost are robust”.

The “reset” of HS2 which led to the updated cost and schedule has “taken a whole year” and he was given “the time and space to go through this job with a fine tooth comb”, he said.

He told the committee that after five years of HS2 civil engineering, he knows “how much it costs to move a cubic metre of earth”.

He said prices have been checked against similar projects, plans for future work have been put into “the right sequence”, and the cost and schedule ranges have been subjected to “a very, very thorough assurance”.

Mr Wild, who began his role in December 2024, added: “I’m not here to criticise what was done in 2020. I wasn’t here.

“What I do know is that these ranges have been subject to the most detailed scrutiny from people who really know how to build these projects.

“For those reasons I really do think these are robust.”

Consequential funding

Fresh calls have been made for Wales to receive billions of pounds in HS2 consequential funding after the UK Government admitted the delayed rail project could now cost more than £100 billion and may not fully open until the 2040s.

The renewed pressure came after Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told MPs the high-speed rail scheme had suffered an “obscene increase in time and costs”, blaming “the failures of successive Conservative governments”.

In response to the statement, Plaid Cymru’s transport spokesperson Ann Davies said HS2 had been “shambolic from the outset”.

“People are right to be angry at the severe lack of leadership and planning that has led us to this point – from repeated delays and scaling back of plans to its spiralling costs,” she said.

“But in Wales, we have an additional reason to be angry. HS2, a rail line connecting London and Birmingham, continues to be wrongly classified as an ‘England and Wales’ project.

“The railway is nowhere near Wales and will bring no meaningful benefit to our communities, yet people in Wales are still expected to help pay for it.”

Ms Davies said Wales was already owed around £4 billion because of the project’s classification and warned the figure could rise further as costs increased.

“Every increase in HS2 spending further skews transport funding away from Wales, reducing the share we receive across the wider UK Transport Department budget and baking the underfunding of Welsh rail infrastructure into future spending decisions,” she said.

She added that she would meet Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport Keir Mather to press for the “funding and powers that Wales is owed”.

Welsh Liberal Democrat Westminster spokesperson David Chadwick also accused the UK Government of continuing to short-change Wales.

“HS2 has become a textbook example of Government mismanagement,” he said.

“At the very least, Wales must now receive the consequential funding it is owed so we can invest in desperately needed transport infrastructure here at home.”

Calls for Wales to receive HS2 consequentials have also previously been made by Welsh Labour politicians and the Welsh Conservatives.

The Welsh Government’s Deputy Minister for Transport Mark Hooper said the latest projected costs showed Wales was being unfairly treated.

“The latest figures showing HS2 will cost up to £102.7 billion make it clearer than ever Wales is being short-changed by the UK Government’s approach,” he said.

“HS2 has been classified as an ‘England and Wales’ project – despite not a single centimetre of track being laid in Wales.

“This is not acceptable. Every pound denied to Wales is a pound that cannot be invested in the integrated, modern transport network that our communities deserve.”

Mr Hooper said securing Wales’ “fair share” of funding was now a “central priority” in the Welsh Government’s relationship with Westminster.

The project was classified as a Wales-and-England scheme in 2015 under David Cameron’s Conservative government despite no part of the railway crossing into Wales.

As a result, Scotland and Northern Ireland have received Barnett consequentials linked to HS2 spending while Wales has not.

Senedd

In March last year, the Senedd rejected Plaid Cymru calls to formally demand that HS2 be redesignated as an England-only project, with members voting 42-12 against the motion.

Speaking in the Commons, Ms Alexander said the estimated total cost of HS2 now stood between £87.7 billion and £102.7 billion in 2025 prices.

The revised timetable means services between west London and Birmingham are not expected to begin operating until between 2036 and 2039, around a decade later than originally planned.

Ms Alexander also confirmed trains would operate at slower speeds than originally planned in an effort to reduce costs, with the maximum speed cut from 224mph to 199mph.