The HS2 high speed line would have provided better value for money for taxpayers if it had not been designed to allow trains to go so fast, according to the rail minister.
Lord Hendy made the frank admission as he set out the Labour government’s aim of getting the costs and timeline of HS2 under control.
Under the current plans, 54 British-built “bullet trains” will travel at a top speed of 225mph along 140miles of high-speed track between London and Birmingham.
But enabling HS2 trains to travel 100mph faster than Avanti West Coast’s tilting Pendolinos, which run on the West Coast Main Line between London and Scotland, has made the cost of building the new track far more expensive than it would have been for a “conventional” railway.
Lord Hendy, during an appearance before the Commons transport committee on Wednesday, was asked by Labour committee chair Ruth Cadbury about the speed of the HS2 trains.
He replied: "I risk straying into personal views, but actually the highest speed high-speed railway in Britain is going to cost this nation a lot of money.”
In 2023, the Government estimated that it would cost between £45bn and £54bn (at 2019 prices) to deliver “phase one” of HS2, between Euston and Birmingham Curzon Street, with a branch onto Handsacre, near Lichfield.
The HS2 board estimated the cost of phase one at £49bn to £57bn.
The then-Tory government feared taking the line further north to Manchester could mean the total cost exceeded £100bn, and scrapped this part of the route.
This means that if HS2 trains were to run beyond Birmingham they would do so on the West Coast Main Line.
In February, the public accounts committee revealed that HS2 trains would be likely to be slower than the Pendolinos when they reached the West Coast Main Line, as they were not designed to cope with its curves and bends.
HS2 was designed to reduce journey times from Euston to Birmingham to 49 minutes, about half an hour quicker at present, and deliver capacity increases.
Lord Hendy said alternative proposals for HS2 between Birmingham and Manchester, avoiding the building of more high-speed track, “looks to us to be far more practicable”.
But he warned that without a successful delivery of phase one, it would be impossible to win support to take HS2 north of Birmingham.
Lord Hendy said the Government appeared to be “nearer” to finding more operators – in addition to Eurostar - to run services to the Continent on the under-capacity HS1 route from St Pancras to Folkestone.
