HS2: Heidi Alexander to set out true cost of rail project – and when trains will begin to run

The latest estimate of the cost of HS2 and a timetable to complete construction of the high-speed railway will be set out by the government on Tuesday, including plans to run trains slower to trim costs.

The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, is expected to give the first official reckoning of the troubled project’s budget in 2026 prices, which HS2’s backers hope will remain substantially below £100bn.

She will also set out when trains are expected to start running between London and Birmingham as part of the long-awaited “reset” of HS2’s construction and contracts. Last year the project was delayed beyond 2033.

The HS2 Ltd chief executive, Mark Wild, is understood to have given the full findings of his review of the project several months ago, and ministers have been considering whether further cost savings were feasible or desirable, including reducing the top speed of trains from 360km/h to 320km/h, nearer the standard European limit.

Plans to build the line with automatic train operation may also be jettisoned. The system does not replace drivers entirely but is primarily used on the busiest metropolitan rail lines with high-frequency services to manage train movement for maximum capacity.

The changes appear likely after excerpts of a further critical report listing HS2’s “original sins” were briefed out by the Department for Transport, including criticism of the “gold plating” of the initial project design and “focusing on the highest possible speeds”.

The report, commissioned by Keir Starmer and written by the former national security adviser Sir Stephen Lovegrove, echoed a review conducted by James Stewart last year into the costs of HS2 and major infrastructure projects.

Lovegrove’s report said that interviews with senior officials involved in HS2 showed the damage done by “changing objectives and political priorities”, as well as awarding some of the biggest civil engineering contracts too soon without sharing the risk of escalating prices.

He found that there was “little doubt that all players, certainly at HS2 Ltd and the Department [for Transport], felt under significant pressure from ministers to keep things moving”.

It adds: “As one interviewee put it, the questions are therefore ‘why [the government] failed to identify and act on the scale of failure in the company’ and whether ‘it was reasonable to assume that the Department had reasonable oversight’?”