My Lords, when I saw the first group for this second day in Committee I thought, “This is going to be Second Reading territory” and, lo and behold, it was the case. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions, which went slightly wide of the amendments in the group, which are essentially about reporting, not about whether or not HS2 should go ahead, although we had a little run around that track as well. I note that the last group on the Marshalled List today is about party walls, and I find that a very exciting prospect and very much hope that we will get there.
As I outlined in my previous responses about the Government’s recent changes to transparency and accountability, we are putting these at the heart of everything we are doing on HS2 because we believe that enhanced reporting measures and ministerial oversight will help. That is not to say that there was a significant deficiency previously, as was suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, but that with all these things good governance is very hard to achieve and incremental improvements to governance structures should be made when they are deemed appropriate.
On Amendment 6, about another report, I think I share the feeling of some noble Lords who have spoken: “Not another one.” There have been several reports on HS2. I believe it is now time to get on and get it built without having another report. Most recently we had the report from Doug Oakervee and his panel and the recommendations therein. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, mentioned some of the people involved in that report, and I think we all agree that they are people of very high calibre. Indeed, they include the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. He was on that panel and, as was and is his right, he published his own dissenting report, which of course the Government read and took note of. Is it time now to have yet another report on HS2? I believe that is not the right thing for us to do. We should be looking at the conclusions of the last report, which was written only recently, and putting them into practice. That is why we have Andrew Stephenson as the Minister for HS2 and why we have put in enhanced reporting requirements to Parliament.
The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, mentioned the HS2 board. It is already a strong board, but it has recently been enhanced by representatives from the Treasury and the Department for Transport. That is to make sure that HS2 remains absolutely focused on our priorities and the interests of the British taxpayer. We also have the integrated rail plan, of which the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is such a fan. That plan is in development and will make recommendations on how best to deliver high-speed rail in the north.
Therefore, the Government do not agree that we need a further report or review—call it what you will— into HS2 at this time. There will be a significant amount of scrutiny to come in any event, given the existing arrangements.
On the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, as I have explained, a new reporting regime has just been put in place that commits the Government to report every six months. The first one was published last month and updated the House on costs and schedule.
I will sidetrack slightly, if I may, on the issue of costs and schedule because I am doing a lot of work around this as there are quite a lot of major projects in my portfolio. In this country, we have a slight issue that we expect to know exactly what the cost and schedule will be on day one. That is not even day one of the build. We seem to want to know what they are going to be on day one when someone has only just thought of the project. That is absolutely impossible with these sorts of large engineering projects.
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We have to wean ourselves off saying on day one, “It will cost £X billion and it will be finished on X date”. We have to come up with a different system that looks more at ranges of costs and schedules, because it is impossible to define such things from the start. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for example, was talking about costs increasing, particularly in the early stages of a project. That is fairly normal, but you should be able to provide the sort of costs that you would expect —a maximum and a minimum, rather than focus on a single amount.
The Government will publish a full business case for phase 2A before the main tranche of construction work begins. In that, there will of course be a much better idea of the costs, and it will include an updated cost/benefit analysis for the scheme. Furthermore, there is a comprehensive system within the Department for Transport for tracking and measuring the benefits of HS2. It may be, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, noted, that we are conservative in measuring our benefits, and I am okay with that. We know that there will be improved journey times and reduced crowding on our rail network, but there are many other benefits, as noted by my noble friend Lord Haselhurst—jobs being one of them—including many apprenticeships and huge benefits for small and medium-sized businesses.
I agreed on Monday that I would write to noble Lords setting out all the things we are doing on improved governance and reporting; I will do that following further contributions from noble Lords today
but, for the time being, I hope that on the basis of my intervention, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, feels able to withdraw his amendment.