Public Accounts Committee — hearing of 14 September 2026: transcript & video

00:02 - 01:44

Speaker 1

Order. Welcome to the Public Accounts Committee on Monday the 14th of September 2026. I'm Sarah Olney MP. I am chairing today's session in the absence of Sir Geoffrey and Clive Betts. Today's session is delivering HS2 and Euston, a perennial, I would say, for this committee.

The HS2 programme aims to deliver high-speed railway between London and Birmingham, but the project has been plagued by a multitude of issues since its inception, including significant cost increases and delays. In May of this year, the Secretary of State announced that the expected cost of completing HS2 now stands between 87.7 billion pounds and 102.7 billion pounds. 46.8 billion has already been spent on the project. Delivery of the project has also been significantly delayed, with full services now expected to be introduced between May 2040 and December 2043, between 3 and 13 years later than previous estimates. As we expressed in our last report on this subject, HS2 has become a casebook example of how not to run a major project.

Today we will be looking to challenge the Department for Transport and HS2 Limited on their latest cost and schedule estimates and the trade-offs being made to reach these. Other lines of questioning will include DfT's and HS2's approach to revising their contracts, improvements in governance and organisational capability, the development of the Euston project, and the issue of land and property disposal. So I'm going to start by asking our witnesses to introduce themselves and their role. I'm going to start with Mr. Creamer on my left and I'll work my way round.

01:44 - 01:48

Speaker 2

I'm Dean Creamer, Director General for Major Rail Projects at DfT.

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