The Department for Transport (DfT) has “not adequately managed risks to taxpayer money” on HS2, according to a report by the National Audit Office (NAO) released on Friday The report says the DfT “underestimated the complexity of the programme.”
The NAO report comes in the same week that a leaked draft review into HS2 by Lord Oakervee revealed spiralling costs – from £56bn to an estimated £106bn – for the high-speed rail link between London, Birmingham and Manchester. Meanwhile, a delegation of Tory MPs went to lobby Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday. The group is calling for the money to be spent on smaller and more quickly deliverable projects in northern England, particularly newly won constituencies in the so-called “Red Wall” of previously safe Labour seats. Key advisors to Johnson, including Dominic Cummings and Andrew Gilligan, have also voiced their scepticism of HS2, with Cummings labelling it a “disaster zone.”
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