High-speed rail project may be swept up in railway crisis as 2012 review released under FOI shows officials believed it was unaffordable

The crisis in Britain’s railways is threatening to engulf HS2, with the government being forced to release a damning report showing the Department for Transport believed the high-speed project was unaffordable given its other spending commitments.

Opponents of HS2 claimed the government was burying bad news as it finally published the Major Projects Authority assessment from 2012 on Thursday, the same day it announced a host of major rail upgrade schemes would be scrapped because of spiralling costs. The transport secretary, Patrick McLoughlin, had previously vetoed its release, overruling the information commissioner.

The MPA assessment from 2012 shows the level of doubt surrounding the project and how officials feared the budget was untenable. It states: “The department believes however that the costs of this project are so large, and over such a long period, that it will not be able to afford it alongside all its other likely spending commitments.”

McLoughlin conceded defeat in a legal case brought by campaigners to have the assessment released in the wake of the supreme court ruling on the “black spider” memos, in which Prince Charles’s correspondence with ministers was ordered to be published after a long battle by the Guardian.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest People prepare to protest against HS2 outside parliament last year. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images

The report shows that despite government assurances at the time about the costs of HS2, there was private acknowledgement that the quoted budget would have to be increased. The report warned that the £16.3bn budget for the London-Birmingham stretch of the high-speed network was “in danger of being mistaken for the expected cost of Phase 1 – whereas it is only a partial estimate made in 2011 prices with significant exclusions”.

A 2015 high-level MPA report published on Thursday continues to grade HS2 as amber/red – a rating that means successful delivery of the project is in doubt, with major risks or issues apparent. An HS2 insider said: “There’s no doubt it is still in a bad place – but it came from an even worse position.”

Despite conceding defeat on the 2011 and 2012 reports, the government does not intend to publish the assessments from subsequent years.

A government spokeswoman said: “We have already published important data in the MPA annual reports of major projects, including HS2, and we have placed a wealth of other information in the public domain about the scheme. However, it is important to strike a balance between the benefits of transparency and protecting the ability of officials to offer frank advice.

“Having taken account of the supreme court judgment in the Prince of Wales’ letters case, and the particular content requested, we are now withdrawing from legal proceedings. The government continues to believe in the need to safeguard the ‘safe space’ for officials to give candid advice to ministers on policy and implementation issues and will continue to defend other cases on this basis.

“On this specific project, HS2 continues to make excellent progress and we are on track to have spades in the ground in 2017 as planned.”

HS2 has received cross-party approval in principle and the hybrid bill is passing through parliament. However, there will be renewed debate about the £50bn high-speed rail scheme after Network Rail’s five-year, £38bn plan was torn up.

Until now, ministers have claimed that upgrades to the conventional railway would be delivered alongside HS2. But the reorganisation of Network Rail and its new, strict funding caps mean there will need to be further negotiations before work on promised schemes, such as electrification, can go ahead.

The rail historian and Labour mayoral candidate Christian Wolmar said: “There has always been an unstated conflict. The cover’s blown. Somethings going to crack.I think they will try to hold the line that HS2 is the most important thing and they will go ahead with it – though eventually I think that line will come apart.”

Cheryl Gillan, the MP for Chesham and Amersham, who has led parliamentary opposition to HS2, said she would be writing to the MPA to demand the release of the most recent reviews. “In the light of what was announced yesterday about the northern rail upgrade project cancellations … will the HS2 project become undeliverable?”

A DfT spokesperson said: “To suggest HS2 is in doubt is false and misleading. The MPA reports are out of date. The spending round in 2013 confirmed long-term funding for HS2.”

The HS2 report was quietly published hours after the transport secretary had announced in the Commons that vital upgrades to major rail lines in the Midlands and the north of England would be paused.

Mounting problems meant Network Rail would not deliver the promised Midland mainline from London to Sheffield, and the TransPennine route between Manchester and Leeds that connects major cities across the north, as costs spiralled and it missed targets.



Labour demanded to know when ministers were made aware that their manifesto promises could not be delivered by Network Rail. In a letter to David Cameron, the shadow transport secretary, Michael Dugher, wrote: “It appears that despite you and your ministers, knowing that these projects were in serious difficulty before the election, you decided to wait until after the election to reveal the extent of the problems before reneging on the commitments you had previously made.

“The public have a right to know if they have been deceived and if members of your government knew for months that these projects would not be delivered as promised.”