The rail project’s chief executive Mark Thurston told the Public Accounts Committee that people on the route who did not choose to live alongside the work “have every right to peacefully protest” but added “the action we are seeing is anything but lawful”.

“This activity has also drawn resources away from the blue light services, at a time when frankly the country has other priorities for those services,” he continued. Mark called for a cross agency response to the protests, as “there is only so much HS2 Ltd and our suppliers can do here”.

Until now, he said, the project has done “a reasonable job of protecting the programme” but added “we don’t expect this issue to go away any time soon”. To date, he told the Committee, somewhere in the region of 300 arrests have been made, with nine prosecutions.

Also giving evidence was the Department for Transport’s permanent secretary Bernadette Kelly, who was asked about the key risks to the project. She replied that costing is always going to be top of that list, but added that ”great strides” have been made since last year in enhancing the oversight and governance of the project.

Right now, she added, Euston “is a very urgent and immediate challenge for phase one” with an “affordable design and delivery strategy” a clear aim. Bernadette also said that the needs of communities along the line are a priority and that “we in the Department are very concerned to ensure that they are being handled sensitively”.

Mark Thurston was later asked by the Committee whether he thought the £44.6Bn budget for phase one is realistic. “Absolutely,” came the reply. He explained that £35Bn has been allocated for the cost of the physical work, with £10Bn of contingency of which around 5% has been spent.

“As we sit here today, notwithstanding that there is still a hell of a lot to do and that we are well aware of the scale of what is in front of us, we are still very confident that we will deliver the project for the funding that has been made available.”

He was then asked what has been done to ensure that the £3.5Bn price for delivering ‘systems’ is reasonable, given the problems suffered by Crossrail.

“We have done a lot of work with the Crossrail team around how they packaged, contracted and then deliver the systems,” said Mark. “The integration point is crucial. So we are pursuing a contract model for the systems, where effectively we will bring the principal systems contractors into one collaborative alliance, so that they have a mutual financial incentive to work together.”

He described this measure as “quite a bold move” but added “frankly, with the experience of Crossrail and when you think of the scale of what we are doing at HS2, we are confident that that is the right way forward”. 

Committee member Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown asked the chief executive if he is relatively confident that phase one will open within the timeframe of 2030 to 2033, but hopefully towards the earlier end of that envelope. “We are confident, yes” replied Mark.

(Photograph: Anthony Jarman / HS2 Rebellion)

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