MPs have cast doubt on the plans for Northern Powerhouse Rail, saying they echo the same failures seen in HS2.
The Public Accounts Committee is also doubtful how the full programme can be completed within its price cap of £45 billion. The Committee says it is not confident that the Department for Transport has learned all the lessons from past failures in its management of other rail projects.
The report says that without sufficient local funds for Greater Manchester, investment there could be at the expense of investment in another local area, which is ‘particularly worrying’ because it was the lack of ‘robust governance’ in the early stages of HS2 which led to problems later.
The Committee has also questioned why the DfT had appointed HS2 Ltd. to develop plans for the line from Liverpool to Manchester, given its track record of poor cost estimation, and said the involvement of HS2 Ltd increases the ‘serious risk’ posed to the final phase of NPR, which is when connections would be completed.
The MPs said the DfT had no ‘convincing plan’ for managing spending to remain within the cap of £45 billion, and called on the DfT to set out how it will keep Parliament updated throughout the programme. They also want to know how the £45 billion funding cap was calculated by the Treasury.
The Committee’s deputy chair Clive Betts said: ‘The government’s growth strategy earlier this year signalled that there is still an appetite to finally deliver the transport infrastructure the North so badly needs. But the spectre of HS2 hangs over Northern Powerhouse Rail. Our Committee has heard troubling echoes of the same mistakes in loose governance that HS2 made early on, and so much of the project remains almost impressionistic, twelve years on. HS2 have even been brought on board to develop NPR’s own plans. As HS2 has been a casebook example of how not to run a major project, so their involvement in NPR does not fill us with confidence.’
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