Wednesday 15 January 2025 10:33 am | Updated: Wednesday 15 January 2025 10:39 am
Share Facebook Share on Facebook X Share on Twitter LinkedIn Share on LinkedIn WhatsApp Share on WhatsApp Email Share on EmailFormer Prime Minister Rishi Sunak controversially scrapped HS2’s northern leg in October 2023
Too much government involvement in HS2 has hampered delivery and fuelled massive cost overruns and delays, according to a key infrastructure adviser.
Sir John Armitt, chair of the National Infrastructure Commission, told MPs he had “never been convinced by the governance structure of HS2,” having been influenced by his own experience delivering the infrastructure for the 2012 Olympic Games.
The Olympic Delivery Authority operated as a standalone body when Armitt served as chair, with “our own ability to hire and fire, with our own ability to get on and be given significant delegated powers.”
HS2 Ltd currently oversees the embattled high speed rail project, acting as an arms-length company funded by grant-in-aid from the government.
It was reported in September the body could come under direct state control following a review into governance and accountability.
‘Transport is an intensely political area’
“I think the retention of HS2 Ltd within the Department for Transport (DfT) can lead to too much oversight quite frankly,” Armitt told the Commons Transport Committee on Wednesday, in apparent contradiction of the current direction.
“Transport is an intensely political area and I can understand it being very difficult for ministers to stand back when they are the ones who, at the end of the day, have to stand up here and defend what’s happening, so the close they can get to the detail the better.
But on the other hand that is “bound to lead to delays, it’s bound to lead I fear to too much desire to actually meet every concern and objection and requirement for extra facilities within a scheme.”
HS2 has had to make some 12,000 local agreements following the hybrid bill and Armitt described the negotiations as “endless.”
“There is of course then the risk that in order to make progress, you say okay. And every time you say okay, thats potentially more delay and certainly more cost.”
“There is a desire to actually please people, rather than a private sector approach which says I have not got any more money, that is all we can afford. And I think government is not very good at saying that.”
The DfT has been approached for comment.
Read moreHS2 chair to step down as cost swells to £66bn
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