UK transport secretary calls HS2 an ‘appalling mess’ as she confirms delay - as it happened
Here’s more detail from our transport correspondent Gwyn Topham:The HS2 high-speed rail network cannot be delivered on its current schedule and budget and will be delayed beyond 2033, the government has admitted, blaming mismanagement by the previous government for schedule and cost overruns.Transport secretary Heidi Alexander told MPs that there was “no reasonable way to deliver” the 2033 target for the first trains to run from London to Birmingham.She did not immediately confirm a new price for the project, which some suggest will now top £100bn at current prices, having officially been in a range of up to £57b n at 2019 prices, nor yet how long the delay would be.But Alexander said she was “drawing a line in the sand” as she unveiled what she called a “litany of failure” over the last 15 years.The government is publishing the findings of a review commissioned last autumn by Labour into the troubled transport scheme, and the first assessment in a “reset” of construction under new HS2 Ltd chief executive Mark Wild.
Alexander said Wild had been told to build the line as safely and cheaply as possible, even if took longer,She said:We won’t reinstate cancelled sections we can’t afford,But we will do the hard and necessary wok to regain public traust and build this line,She told MPs that last government mismanaged HS2 in numerous ways, including signing contracts against advice and repeatedly changing plans for redesigning London Euston station – now at a total cost of £250m in rejected design plans alone, she said,Alexander told the Commons:Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been wasted by constant scope changes, ineffective contracts and bad management.
It’s an appalling mess,But it’s one we will sort out,We need to set targets which we can confidently deliver, that the public can trust, and that will take time,But rest assured, where there are inefficiencies, we will root them out,The high-speed rail network HS2 cannot be delivered on its current schedule and budget and will be delayed beyond 2033, the government has admitted, blaming mismanagement by the previous Conservative administration for schedule and cost overruns.
The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, told MPs there was “no reasonable way to deliver” on the 2033 target for the first trains to run between London and Birmingham.“Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been wasted by constant scope changes, ineffective contracts and bad management,” Alexander told the Commons “It’s an appalling mess.But it’s one we will sort out.”Here’s our timeline on HS2: 16 years of high hopes, bruising reality and burgeoning costsInflation in the UK eased slightly to 3.4% last month as a steep fall in air fares and petrol prices was offset by a jump in the cost of food.
May’s decline in the consumer prices index (CPI), down from the official figure of 3.5% for April, complicates the Bank of England’s interest rates decision on Thursday, although policymakers are still almost certain to hold interest rates at 4.25%.Annual food inflation jumped to 4.4% in May from 3.
4% in April, spurred by increases in the cost of sugar, jam and chocolate, which rose at the fastest pace since records began in 2016,Poor harvests affecting major cocoa-producers in Ghana and Ivory Coast sent chocolate prices soaring 17,7%,Ruth Gregory, the deputy chief UK economist at Capital Economics, said rising food prices would be a concern to the Bank, especially when some staples such as meat were also pushed higher,Our other main stories today:Thank you for reading.
We’ll be back tomorrow.Enjoy the sunshine! – JKThe figures come ahead of the Federal Reserve’s meeting and interest rate decision later today, with no change expected, but all eyes will be on Fed chair Jerome Powell when he holds his press conference, for any hints on the direction of interest rates.On Wall Street, stocks have opened flat to slightly higher.The sixth day of the Israel-Iran conflict is keeping investors on edge.In Europe, Germany’s Dax has fallen by 0.
7% and France’s CAC is down 0.5% while the Italian borsa has lost 0.3% and the FTSE 100 index in London is 9 points ahead at 8,843, up 0.1%.Oil prices are rising again, with Brent crude up 0.
7%% or 55 cents to $76.99 a barrel while US crude is 0.9% higher at $75.5 a barrel, up 68 cents.European gas prices have risen for a sixth day on fears of disruption to energy flows in the Middle East.
European natural gas futures climbed to €40 per megawatt hour, the highest since early April, and are now up 1.7% at €39.9 per MWh.Traders worry about potential disruptions to vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a key route for global energy trade.The number of houses started in the United States last month fell sharply to the lowest level since May 2020, when Covid disrupted construction.
US housing starts slumped by 9.8% month on month in May to 1.256m, 4.6% lower than in May last year.There was also a sharp drop in permits for future construction.
Thomas Ryan, North America economist at Capital Economics, said:With single-family starts essentially unchanged, the large drop was entirely driven by a huge 30% month-on-month fall in multi-family starts.We always emphasise the volatility of multi-family housing starts, however, and even with the sharp drop, they have only fallen to their lowest level since last November.Unseasonably wet weather in the East and some parts of the South seemed to play some role in the fall in starts.Housing starts fell in the Northeastern and Southern regions, while rising in the West, although they did drop back in the Midwest too.Looking through these one-off factors, the outlook for homebuilding is still gloomy.
Borrowing costs remain close to 7%, which is keeping buyers on the sidelines, while the evidence from homebuilder financial accounts shows building material tariffs already weighing on margins,Therefore, it was not much of a surprise that NAHB homebuilder confidence fell to 32 in June, from 34, marking its lowest level since December 2022,The report was weak across the board with all three of the major sub-indices posting losses in June,While we anticipate a bit of a bounce back in housing starts in June, new development will continue to weaken over the next year or so,Total housing starts in the U.
S,plunged 9,8% in May to an annual rate of 1,256 million, 4,6% lower than in May 2024.
Single-family home starts were flat in May compared to April but down 7.3% compared to last year.Building permits were also down.#realestate #economy #housing pic.twitter.
com/59AIaO55fjUS housing starts continued to downshift in May, falling to 1.256 million units, the lowest since Apr 2020 and another sign that elevated mortgage rates & other factors are weighing on residential real estate activity: pic.twitter.com/lAY9DheYefOne of the biggest issues in America is our nation's desperate need for more housing -- especially for first-time buyers.We need 2 million+ new homes built a year to try to fix.
The reality?We're on track for ~1,4 million,Blame tariffsBlame high mortgage ratesBlame… pic,twitter,com/JfD11TBHHUHere’s our full take on the delay to the HS2 rail project:Shares in the UK’s two biggest pharmaceutical companies, AstraZeneca and GSK, are down by 1.
1% and 1.4% respectively, after Donald Trump suggested the US could soon impose tariffs on the sector.He told reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday that pharma tariffs are “coming very soon,” Reuters reported.The US president made the remarks as he returned from the G7 meeting in Canada.Trump said:We’re going to be doing pharmaceuticals very soon.
That’s going to bring all the companies back into America.It’s going to bring most of them back into, at least partially back in.The threat of pharma tariffs has been there for some time.The project has suffered repeated delays and soaring costs despite being scaled back.HS2 Ltd, the company building the high-speed rail line between London and Birmingham, is investigating claims that one of its labour suppliers on the project charged overinflated rates for staff.
Former prime minister Rishi Sunak announced the axing of HS2’s northern leg in 2023.The government-commissioned review of HS2 by James Stewart has examined what went wrong and what it can teach ministers about how to run future infrastructure projects, while the new HS2 Ltd chief executive Mark Wild continues to examine how and when to construct the rest of the phase-one line from London to Birmingham.The problems identified in the reports go beyond the escalating costs of tunnelling and environmental mitigations such as the £100m bat tunnel, which has been singled out for criticism by Keir Starmer.Phase one of the HS2 scheme was projected in 2012 to cost £20bn, but more recent estimates now put that figure at as much as £57bn.Wild’s review, according to sources quoted by the rail expert Christian Wolmar could lead to the full budget being restated at current prices at more than £100bn.
Here’s more detail from our transport correspondent Gwyn Topham:The HS2 high-speed rail network cannot be delivered on its current schedule and budget and will be delayed beyond 2033, the government has admitted, blaming mismanagement by the previous government for schedule and cost overruns.Transport secretary Heidi Alexander told MPs that there was “no reasonable way to deliver” the 2033 target for the first trains to run from London to Birmingham.She did not immediately confirm a new price for the project, which some suggest will now top £100bn at current prices, having officially been in a range of up to £57b n at 2019 prices, nor yet how long the delay would be.But Alexander said she was “drawing a line in the sand” as she unveiled what she called a “litany of failure” over the last 15 years.The government is publishing the findings of a review commissioned last autumn by Labour into the troubled transport scheme, and the first assessment in a “reset” of construction under new HS2 Ltd chief executive Mark Wild.
Alexander said Wild had been told to build the line as safely and cheaply as possible, even if took longer.She said:We won’t reinstate cancelled sections we can’t afford.But we will do the hard and necessary wok to regain public traust and build this line.She told MPs that last government mismanaged HS2 in numerous ways, including signing contracts against advice and repeatedly changing plans for redesigning London Euston station – now at a total cost of £250m in rejected design plans alone, she said.Alexander told the Commons:Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been wasted by constant scope changes, ineffective contracts and bad management.
It’s an appalling mess.But it’s one we will sort out.We need to set targets which we can confidently deliver, that the public can trust, and that will take time.But rest assured, where there are inefficiencies, we will root them out.Heidi Alexander has confirmed a further delay to the HS2 project, calling it an “appalling mess” but vowed to “sort it out”.
Speaking in the House of Commons, the UK transport secretary said:We will learn the lessons of the past 15 years, and restore our reputation of delivering world-class infrastructure projects,Billions of pounds of taxpayer’s money has been wasted by constant scope changes, ineffective contracts and bad management,It is an appalling mess, but it is one we will sort out,She added that there are also allegations of fraud,Alexander said the government accepted all the recommendations of the HS2 review, which was commissioned last October, adding that ministers are already delivering on them, in five key areas:A lack of oversight and scrutinySpiralling costsA deficit in capability and skillsAddressing plans for Euston station in LondonTransforming infrastructure delivery across governmentEurozone inflation in May fell below the European Central Bank’s 2% target for the first time in seven months
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