National Audit Office says business case for high speed rail line has numerous flaws

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The government鈥檚 business case for the high speed rail line to the north of England has numerous flaws and project management failings, the public spending watchdog has concluded.

The National Audit Office report found that the evidence for the claimed benefits of the HS2 project, such as the high speed line鈥檚 ability to stimulate regional growth, still remained unclear over a year after the transport secretary gave the project the go-ahead.

It said the Department for Transport had not put its strategic objectives, including regional growth, at the heart of the management of the project and that it needed to improve its oversight.

The report said it was unclear if the government鈥檚 business case covered both the first and second phases of the project, which would take the line up to Manchester and Leeds, or just the first phase to Birmingham.

It also said the government鈥檚 original plan to introduce a hybrid bill into parliament in October 2013 was 鈥渙verambitious鈥� and its current plan to introduce it in December 2013 was still 鈥渃hallenging鈥�.

Margaret Hodge, chair of public accounts committee, said the business case was 鈥渃learly not up to scratch鈥�.

She added: 鈥淭here is virtually no evidence in this business case to support claims that HS2 will deliver regional economic growth, one of the key aims and justifications for this project. We have been told that it will deliver around 100,000 new jobs but there is no evidence that all these jobs would not have been created anyway.鈥�

The report followed the announcement by HS2 Ltd, the company developing the project, that it intends to bore a 2.3km twin bore tunnel between Castle Bromwich and Washwood Heath, just outside Birmingham.

Eileen Munro, chief executive of HS2 Ltd, said the new tunnel was 鈥渓ess complex in engineering terms鈥� than the original plans to run under the M6 Bromford viaduct.

Transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin said the 鈥渄id not accept the NAO鈥檚 core conclusion鈥� because it was based on 鈥渙ut of date analysis鈥� and 鈥渄oes not give due weight to the good progress that has been made since last year鈥�.

He added: 鈥溾�淓conomic modelling is just the start of the story - if we only relied on modelling we would not have built the M1, parts of the M25 or the Jubilee line extension to Canary Wharf.

鈥淲e are not building HS2 simply because the computer says 鈥榊es鈥�.  We are building it because it is the right thing to do to make Britain a stronger and more prosperous place.鈥�

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