Government refuses to guarantee second leg of HS2 to Manchester will go ahead

Published

12 months ago

September 14, 2023

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Downing Street has refused to guarantee the HS2 will run to Manchester as planned amid reports Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt are in talks about scrapping the project’s second stage.

It comes after The Independent reported ministers were considering shelving the northern phase amid concerns about spiralling costs and severe delays.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said “spades are already in the ground on our HS2 programme and we’re focused on delivering it” but would not promise the line would go to Manchester.

“I can’t comment on speculation around a leaked document. It is obviously standard process for departments to discuss the phasing of major projects like HS2… but the work is already under way,” he said.

Asked whether the prime minister was committed to the line going to Manchester, the spokesman said: “We are committed to HS2, to the project.

“I can’t comment on the speculation that’s a result of a photograph. We are as you know looking at the rephasing of the work in the best interests of passengers and taxpayers.”

Signs that the leg to the northern city may be in trouble came when the DfT confirmed in March that work on the crucial leg between Birmingham and Crewe – which is then due to continue to Manchester – would have to be put on hold because of the impact of inflation.

It meant that services were not going to extend to Manchester until the 2040s.

In its report, The Independent said a cost estimate revealed that the government has already spent £2.3bn on stage two of the railway from Birmingham to Manchester, but that ditching the northern phase could save up to £34bn.

The newspaper said the documents were discussed at a meeting in Downing Street on Tuesday and suggested the £2.3bn was now not recoverable even if it is cancelled.

HS2 plagued by delays

Delivery of the high-speed railway has been a core pledge of the Conservative government but it has been plagued by delays and ever-increasing costs.

The initial opening date of 2026 has fallen back to 2033, while cost estimates have spiralled from about £33bn in 2010 to £71bn in 2019 – excluding the final eastern leg from the West Midlands to the East Midlands.

It is not just the northern section of the project that has encountered trouble, with there also being doubts about the future of Euston station in London.

Under the HS2 map, Euston is supposed to provide the final leg in the south after linking up to Old Oak Common in the suburbs of northwest London.

However, Transport Secretary Mark Harper recently told MPs that work at Euston would be paused for two years because costs had risen to £4.8bn compared with an initial budget of £2.6bn – which MPs on the Public Accounts Committee described as ” wildly unrealistic”.

Since construction began there six years ago, hundreds of homes and businesses have been demolished – but now the huge building site is virtually empty.

The DfT has said it will use the two-year period to determine its priorities and minimum requirements for the station.

This summer HS2 was also rated “unachievable” as part of an annual report from a government watchdog.

The Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) gave the first two phases of the rail link – from London to Birmingham, and from Birmingham to Crewe, a “red” rating, saying the whole plan may need to be “reassessed”.

The government announced further delays to HS2 earlier this year in an effort to “balance the books” after inflation hit the cost of materials.

But analysis exclusively leaked to Sky News showed the two-year pause in works would end up being three-and-a-half years, and was likely to cost the taxpayer at least £366m.

In its report, the IPA said: “Successful delivery of [HS2] appears to be unachievable.”

The watchdog added there were “major issues with project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery, which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable”.

As a result, it said the project “may need re-scoping and/or its overall viability reassessed”.

This latest criticism comes in the same month that HS2 Ltd’s chief executive, Mark Thurston, announced he would be resigning from his post in September.

UK

Sir Keir Starmer says there is no money for the NHS without reform, as he admits plan will take ‘years not months’

Published

27 mins ago

September 12, 2024

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Sir Keir Starmer says there is no money for the NHS without reform, as he admits plan will take 'years not months'

The NHS will not get any more funding without reforming, Sir Keir Starmer has said as he laid out a 10-year plan to fix the health service.

The prime minister stressed his plans to build an NHS fit for the future “do not just mean putting more money in”, and will take a decade to complete.

Politics Live: Damning NHS report gives Starmer mandate for change

Delivering a speech at the King’s Fund in central London, he said: “We have to fix the plumbing before we turn on the taps.

“So, hear me when I say this, no more money without reform.”

The government has promised three “big shifts” in its approach to fix the NHS:

• Using more technology to create a “digital NHS”
• Shifting more care out of hospitals and into communities
• Moving from treating sickness to focusing on prevention

Describing problems in the NHS, Sir Keir said he wasn’t prepared to spend money “on agency staff who cost £5,000 a shift, on appointment letters which arrive after the appointment, or on paying for people to be stuck in hospital just because they can’t get the care they need in the community”.

“Tonight, there will be 12,000 patients in that very position – that’s enough to fill 28 hospitals.

“That isn’t just solved by more money, it’s solved by reform.”

Sir Keir was speaking as NHS performance stats dropped showing the overall waiting list for treatment remained unchanged in July, with an estimated 7.62 million procedures waiting to be carried relating to 6.39 million patients.

The list hit a record high in September 2023 with 7.77 million treatments, after which the figures fell for several months before rising in April, May and June of this year.

Dr Nick Murch, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said the new NHS figures “demonstrate the scale of the short-term challenge”.

In a Q&A after his speech, the prime minister would not be drawn on how soon patients could expect to see improvements.

Asked by Sky News health correspondent Ashish Joshi what he would tell somebody who is ill now, Sir Keir said the success of his plans “is going to be measured in years, not months”.

He said: “I accept the challenge to me, which is that it’s going to take a long time, it’s going to be measured in years, not months, and we need to have something to say for someone who is ill now, which is getting the NHS back on its feet.

“But we can’t duck the long-term change.”

The speech comes after a report commissioned by the new government found the NHS is in a “critical condition”, with record waiting lists and too much of its budget spent in hospitals.

The study, carried out by independent peer and surgeon Lord Darzi, argues the NHS is facing rising demand for care as people live longer in ill health, coupled with low productivity in hospitals and poor staff morale.

It criticises political decision-making under the Conservatives and the coalition government, including the impact of austerity, a “starvation of investment” and the reorganisation of the NHS under the 2012 Health and Social Care Act, which Lord Darzi called “a calamity without international precedent”.

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This meant the COVID pandemic came “when resilience was at an all-time low”, he said.

The report also said “long waits have become normalised”, cancer care lags behind other countries, and describes A&E as being “in an awful state”.

Sir Keir said the Tories “broke the NHS” and “only a Labour government” can reform it, adding that it must “reform or die”.

UK

Naked politics as Starmer tries to calm NHS expectations

Published

3 hours ago

September 12, 2024

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Naked politics as Starmer tries to calm NHS expectations

Today’s major report by peer and NHS surgeon Lord Darzi on the National Health Service aims to perform three very clear political tasks.

The first is to set expectations that the service will not be fixed by the time of the next election by talking about a 10-year, two-parliament programme for change.

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The second is to prepare the ground for more money to go into the NHS – something Sir Keir Starmer appeared to explicitly signal today.

The third is to change the way we think about what’s needed for the NHS.

This means moving away from the way the Tories’ talk about NHS reform – stop focusing on new hospitals as a goal in of themselves and framing social care reform as a means of freeing up NHS beds rather than protecting middle-class wealth, for instance.

Today, we did not learn the shape of a reborn NHS. Instead, we were treated to some naked politics by a prime minister trying to condition and calm expectations.

The most significant thing from Sir Keir’s interpretation of the report was an apparent acknowledgement that, in time, more money – presumably reasonable sums of more money – will be needed.

Addressing the King’s Fund thinktank, the prime minister said: “A Labour government will always make the investment in our NHS that is needed. Always. But we have to fix the plumbing before turning on the taps.

“So, hear me when I say this, no more money without reform.”

UK

17-year-old arrested in connection with cyber attack on TfL

Published

3 hours ago

September 12, 2024

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17-year-old arrested in connection with cyber attack on TfL

A 17-year-old male has been arrested as part of the investigation into a cyber security incident affecting Transport for London (TfL).

The teenager was detained in Walsall on suspicion of Computer Misuse Act offences in relation to the attack, which was launched on TfL on 1 September.

He has been questioned by officers from the National Crime Agency (NCA) and has been bailed.

It is understood some customer data was compromised, including customer names and contact details.

Some Oyster card refund data may also have been accessed. This could include bank account numbers and sort codes of around 5,000 customers.

The NCA has said it is working alongside TfL and the National Cyber Security Centre to manage the incident and minimise risk to customers.

Paul Foster, head of the NCA’s National Cyber Crime Unit, said: “We have been working at pace to support Transport for London following a cyber attack on their network, and to identify the criminal actors responsible.

“Attacks on public infrastructure such as this can be hugely disruptive and lead to severe consequences for local communities and national systems.

“The swift response by TfL following the incident has enabled us to act quickly, and we are grateful for their continued co-operation with our investigation, which remains ongoing.

“The NCA leads the UK’s response to cybercrime. We work closely with partners to protect the public by ensuring cyber criminals cannot act with impunity, whether that be by bringing them before the courts or through other disruptive and preventative action.”

Providing customers with an update, TfL said on Thursday: “Although there has been very little impact on our customers so far, the situation is evolving and our investigations have identified that certain customer data has been accessed. This includes some customer names and contact details, including email addresses and home addresses where provided.

“Some Oyster card refund data may have also been accessed. This could include bank account numbers and sort codes for a limited number of customers.

“If you are affected, we will contact you directly as soon as possible as a precautionary measure, and will offer you support and guidance.”

TfL said it has now put in place additional measures to improve its security and will provide further updates as soon as possible.