Overview
Corruption on an Industrial Scale - £30 Billion+
Summary
MP's, Parliament, Select Committees & the public were misled by at least £30bn on the true cost of HS2 by HS2 Ltd Board Members, DfT Civil Servants & DfT Ministers.
There is hard evidence that prior to the crucial HS2 phase 1 Bill final vote in Feb 2017 that HS2 Ltd, the DfT & government knew that the HS2 phase 1 property costs were over the £1.5bn declared costs by up to £2bn & that it was £1bn over budget in other areas & crucially that a Major Project Authority report sent to the DfT & the Cabinet Office in Jan 2017, one month before the final vote on HS2 phase 1, stated that the HS2 project was in chaos & costs could be greater than £80bn.
There is further hard evidence that prior to the final HS2 phase 2a vote on July 15 2019, HS2 Ltd, DfT Civil Servants & DfT Ministers knew that the HS2 costs were not £55.6bn, but actually were greater than £80bn, also that the Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) had fallen from 2.3 to 1.5 and the project was delayed by 5 years from 2026 to 2031.
HS2 Ltd Board Members, DfT Civil Servants & DfT Ministers failed to pass on any of this information to parliament prior to the phase 2a vote.
That failure was potentially fraud, Misconduct in Public Office, a breach of the Civil Service Code, a breach of the Ministerial Code, a breach of Parliamentary Privilege & Contempt of Parliament.
As one DfT official said, 'If we had told you the true cost of HS2, you would never have approved it!'
When was it Clearly Fraud?
Four days after the HS2 phase 2a final debate & vote on July 15th 2019, the HS2 Chairman's (Allan Cook) Stocktake was 'leaked' & after reading it every interested MP & Lord would have then have realised that they had been massively misled on HS2 costs, benefits & timetable.
In the July 15th debate Rail Minister Nus Ghani when asked repeatedly about HS2 costs had stated in reply that the HS2 budget was £55.6bn & the BCR was still 2.3. Four days later the HS2 Stocktake was 'carefully' leaked stating that HS2 costs were now £70bn - £85bn, the BCR was now 1.5 & phase 1 was delayed 5yrs from 2026 to 2031.
In the debate Rail Minister Nus Ghani was asked at least 10 times about HS2's spiralling costs, she replied not with the true costs, but by restating that the HS2 budget was still £55.6bn, which is lying by omission and then also stated that the BCR remained at 2.3, when she knew it had reduced to 1.5, which is lying in fact.
Who Has Been Directly Informed Of The Fraud & Asked To Act?
Just about everyone - The PM (Boris), the Cabinet Secretary, the DfT, at least 60 MP's, the Speaker, three High Court Judges, the SFO, Met Police & MSM.
With the above being informed you would have reasonably thought there would have been some sort of external investigation into the accusations, at least to refute them! - but not a whisper.
In Aug 2021 Bernadette Kelly DfT Permanent Secretary and HS2 Accounting Officer responded to to Lord Berkeley's accusations with a verbose non reply (read it & then again - it says nothing).
In January 2022 Boris Johnson as PM was asked to investigate in a direct letter from Lord Berkeley, Boris did not even bother to reply, instead Lord True as Minister of State for the Cabinet Office eventually replied, just stating that Boris had not requested an investigation.
In Oct 2023 the Sunday Times published an in depth HS2 report exposing a multi million pound cover up, naming names of whistleblowers, MP's and Ministers even intimating that an unnamed Rail Minister (actually Nus Ghani) had misled parliament.
What happened after this exposé?, very little HS2 announced an investigation by their Fraud Unit (investigating themselves) & Labour obviously were all over this opportunity to hammer the government?
Nope, all they did was get Stephen Morgan the Shadow Transport Minister to ask:
"In June 2019 Tory Ministers were reportedly told by the new HS2 Chairman (Allan Cook) that HS2 was billions over budget & years behind schedule, yet as MP's in this house debated the third reading of the HS2 bill on the 15th of July, none of that was made clear to parliamentarians, does the Secretary of State agree that if the true cost was hidden from parliament that that would represent an outrageous breach of the Ministerial Code? And can he confirm right now if that was the case?
Transport Minister Stephen Harper replied:
"...I am sure all my ministerial colleagues, both past and present are very well aware of their responsibilities under the ministerial code & I am sure they gave truthful answers to parliament at the time."
A total non answer, and Harper was allowed to get away with it, no follow up questions, nothing.
And was there a follow up from the Sunday Times into their revelations, nope, the reporters went into radio silence and that was that.
In Sept 2024 BBC Panorama produced an hour long in depth report on HS2 corruption, in the programme Ex HS2 Chairman Allen Cook stated that at a meeting in Apr 2019, he had told Rail Minister Nus Ghani MP (Now amazingly Deputy Speaker) that HS2 could not meet the £55.6bn budget & it was over budget by at least £7bn & delayed by at least 3 years.
Mr Cook then went onto say he was very surprised when Nus Ghani did not pass this information onto parliament & instead just stated that the HS2 was on track, the budget remained at £55.6bn & the BCR remained at 2.3:1.
When pushed he did admit that he thought the Nus Ghani had 'been conservative with the truth'.
A damning exposé, the Chairman of HS2 had just told the world on prime time TV that a rail minster had lied to parliament to the tune of £30bn.
Were the papers all over it? Were questions asked in the House? - no & no, not a word, not a whisper, absolutely nothing.
So the fix is in, it has always been in, from 2010 onwards and as all 3 main parties have supported HS2, nobody on either side of the HofC has had the stomach to hold the HS2 project to account, MP's were whipped into supporting phase 1. However, in 2019 for Phase 2a from Lichfield to Crewe, the vote was not whipped, but still 263 out of 650 MPs voted for it.
As such we have ended with just Phase 1, a pared back Acton to Aston shuttle terminating at Old Oak Common and now costing £66bn (initial budget was £23bn) for just 140 miles, making HS2 the most expensive railway in the world at £470mn / mile (EU Average for HSR is £50mn / mile).
Corruption History
HS2 was conceived in 2009 by the Labour party and it's initial design was rushed through in a few months to meet an end of year deadline set by Andrew Adonis for the 2010 election with tempting soundbites of 250mph & journeys from Edinburgh to Paris.
Labour lost the 2010 election, but the Conservative / LibDem coalition took it up, even though the Conservatives knew it would be heavily opposed by heartland voters in North London, Chilterns and South Midlands, seemingly pushed on by the construction industry, which have always been large donors.
The choice to design for 250mph trains, far higher than the 186mph of the HSR in France, Germany & Italy French TGV has been the main problem all along. This forced a flat route, with a very high radius curves, which meant high engineering costs to plough through the terrain, requiring many tunnels, deep cuttings and high embankments. The route could not be built through the Chilterns Hills AONB without significant tunnelling and it went through the widest part. Another cost, not initially foreseen, was the need for the high cost slab track as normal ballasted track using stone deteriorates rapidly at high speeds an the stones start to fly, which damages the rails and the trains. The 250mph pledge also created construction problems in that any track movement would make it unsafe at 250mph and so the DfT specified minimal soil movement, thereby increasing civil engineering costs.
Crucially HS2 Ltd did not perform soil surveys and just provided inadequate 100 year old soil surveys for the construction companies to tender against. The contractors recognised the risks and increased their estimates to provide cover for which caused a cost increase when the soil conditions were not as the survey. Optimism bias was also a significant factor in the low estimated initial costs on design, property, construction & engineering, the costs soon spiralled, but what HS2 Ltd & DfT could admit to, was balanced against the maximum cost the DfT considered it could bluff past parliament.
The initial back of fag packet 2012 costings of £31bn - £36bn were soon uplifted to £50bn in 2013 (now included rolling stock & line costs!) & then in 2015 the costs were uplifted just by inflation to £55.6bn and then incredibly there was no published increase for 4 years, whilst the phase 1 & 2a bills passed through parliament and were approved in Feb 2017 & July 2019.
HS2 rising costs should have been transparent, as built into the 2014 HS2 Development Agreement were fixed Review Points 1, 2 & 3 which HS2 was supposed to pass before moving onto the next part of the project. In 2016 they failed to pass Review Point 1 on costs & timetable, but inferred to parliament that it had passed. In Jul 2017 after the phase 1 bill was passed in Feb 2017, they realised that HS2 could never hold to the £55.6bn & 2026 timetable and as such would never pass Review Point 1, so in 2017 they removed all references to Review Points 1, 2 & 3 from the updated HS2 Development Agreement and as such all external checks over HS2 costs & procedures were removed, and from 2017 DfT Ministers Chris Grayling & Nus Ghani continued to tell parliament, select committees & MP's that 'HS2 was on time & on budget' at £55.6bn & 2026, right up until the July 2019 HS2 phase 2a final vote.
The key reason for keeping the budget at £55.6bn from 2015 onwards was to keep the Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) presented to parliament(2.3 @ £55.6bn) in the high rating (just) of the DfT's Value For Money (VFM) table (High 2 - 4, Medium 1.5 - 2 & Low 1.0 - 1.5). It should be noted that normally the DfT would not touch a project unless it was in Very High rating of VFM ie > 4.
A cost rise of £10bn from £55.6bn to £65bn would drop the BCR to < 2 & into the DfT's Medium VFM rating & even worse, a rise to £85bn would put the BCR at 1.5 & into the Low VFM category.
It would seem that HS2 Ltd, the DfT & The Cabinet Office did not want MP's to have any firm reasons to question HS2's costs, BCR, VFM or timetable in the phase 1 & 2a Bill debates, so they deliberately did not inform parliament for 3 plus years that HS2 costs were much higher than the £55.6bn budget.
Since 2015 there have been multiple bodies & individuals that have reported that the costs for HS2 were being massively underestimated and that HS2 Ltd / DfT / Ministers were lying to parliament & the public. The fact that some of the pre 2019 reports / 'whistleblowers' were internal to HS2 Ltd / the DfT / government speaks volumes that HS2 Ltd, the DfT & the Cabinet Office were determined to mislead parliament on the true cost of HS2.
2015 Mar - Mitchell & Bodman Evidence - £158bn
2015 Jun - HS2 / DfT Declared Budget - £55.6bn
2016 Jun - Heywood HS2 Report (Cabinet Office has refused to release under FOI multiple times)
2016 Dec - Doug Thornton & Andrew Bruce - HS2 Property £5bn
2016 Dec - Michael Byng Phase 1 - £47.8bn
2017 Jan - IPA HS2 Report - > £80bn (Cabinet Office have refused to release under FOI)
2017 Jan - Michael Byng DfT Report - Phase 1 Cost £48bn (HS2 Ltd Estimate £18bn)
2017 Feb - HS2 Phase 1 final vote - £55.6bn Declared Budget (unchanged from 2015)
2017 Jul - DfT removed all requirements for review points from HS2 Development Agreement - £55.6bn
2017 Aug - Michael Byng Initial Estimate - £104bn
2018 Jan - HS2 Risk Director Harrison Presentation - £84bn
2019 May - DfT receive draft of Chairman's Stocktake - £70bn
2019 Apr - DfT formally informed that HS2 could not meet budget - £62.6bn
2019 Jun - DfT receive updated draft of Chairmen's Stocktake - > £70bn
2019 Jul - HS2 Phase 2a final vote - £55.6bn Declared Budget (unchanged from 2015)
2019 Jul - HS2 Chairman's Stocktake 'leaked' to FT - £85bn
2019 Aug - HS2 Chairman's Stocktake formally delivered to DfT - £85bn
2019 Dec - Boris Johnson Statement - 'north of £100bn'
2020 Jan - Berkeley & Byng Report - £107bn
2021 Feb - Berkeley Update - £142bn
2021 Feb - Oakervee Review - Max £106bn
2022 Oct - Berkeley Update - £155.52bn
2024 Jan - HS2 Chairman Jon Thompson phase 1 cost update - £66bn
(This cost update to £66bn, which would have made the HS2 full 'Y' cost c£132bn)
HS2 Chairman Allan Cook (who also misled parliament & the public) said "Can we effectively trust everything politicians are saying? What were finding now is that actually we can't trust them".
It would seem that Doug Thornton, Andrew Bruce, Tony Berkeley & Michael Byng were right all along - we cannot trust politicians & on HS2 we have all been lied to!
If you have any evidence of HS2 corruption
or want to make a comment
Please get in touch
E-mail: info@hs2-corruption.org.uk
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