ALLEGATIONS of financial mismanagement by HS2 Ltd formed the centrepiece of a major investigation published by the Sunday Times on October 22.
Its work suggests that senior executives in HS2 Ltd repeatedly played down reports that the company was over-spending and dismissed concerns raised by managers in the business.
The story comes just a couple of weeks after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak cancelled the northern half of the project, which was set to build onwards from the West Midlands to Manchester (to open in the 2030s) and towards an East Midlands hub near Nottingham (rather than Leeds, which government cancelled back in 2021).
Sunak justified his decision by saying that the project was costing too much. But his announcement met with stiff criticism -particularly around Euston, which is now in the hands of private developers, and with his insistence that land bought for HS2 be quickly sold off.
An editorial in the Sunday Times on the day it published its investigation noted: “Taxpayers deserve to know how such an important project was allowed to go off the rails in this way, to the detriment of future generations.
“A commitment to transparency in significant public sector projects would be a good starting point in endeavouring to ensure this does not happen again.”
The gist of the newspaper’s story was that MPs were told HS2 would cost less than internal company estimates were suggesting, and that MPs authorised the project on the basis of these lower costs.
The newspaper relies on testimony from two whistleblowers who worked for HS2 Ltd around 2015 and 2016, and who were (according to the paper) dismissed from the company when they raised their concerns.
A third worked for the company on a short-term contract in 2015 and later returned in 2018, before HS2 Ltd told him his contract was not being renewed in 2022.
This person told the Sunday Times that HS2 Ltd would choose the lowest possible figure in an estimated cost range to present its case to government. It would also use the highest possible figure in estimates of potential savings.
The newspaper reports one conversation recorded by this third whistleblower with a manager who (according to the paper) said: “We are running out of ways to downplay this stuff.”
HS2 Ltd told RAIL that the allegations of the first two whistleblowers were “simply untrue” and had been intensely scrutinised by the National Audit Office. It added that neither was dismissed for whistleblowing, and that the third’s allegations were still being investigated.
Around the time of the third whistleblower’s concerns, then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson calle
