The £100Bn HS2 Debacle
Newscast
BBC
4.3 • 6.6K Ratings
🗓️ 19 May 2026
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, its been revealed HS2 could cost up to £102.7bn and trains will be slower than first planned.
It has been revealed trains will not start running until between 2036 and 2039, up to six years later than the most recent official target of 2033. As of March 2026, £44.2bn has already been spent on the programme. Adam and Faisal discuss how we have got to this point.
And, the Metropolitan Police have confirmed that up to 57 individuals and 20 companies could face criminal charges over the Grenfell Tower fire disaster.
They say they will submit evidence files to the Crown Prosecution Service who will then make a final decision on whether to prosecute with any trials unlikely to take place before 2029, ten years after the disaster took place.
Adam is joined by correspondent Tom Symonds to discuss why the process has taken so long.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.9 | Hello, coming up is Tuesday's episode of Newscast, where we're going to do a couple of stories that have hit the news today, none of which is the Makerfield by-election. |
| 0:15.2 | Although there is a smitten of news from that crucial contest, Andy Burnham has been confirmed as Labour's candidate. |
| 0:22.9 | He has now been selected. |
| 0:25.0 | He is the person fighting the seat for Labour. |
| 0:28.6 | Reform UK have also selected their candidate. |
| 0:31.7 | He's a guy called Robert Kenyon, and he is a plumber, |
| 0:35.0 | a profession that's proved very popular amongst by-election candidates this year, |
| 0:39.2 | as you as a newscast and election cast listener will know. |
| 0:42.6 | And a full list of the candidates that have been selected for the Makerfield by-election so far |
| 0:46.4 | is available on the BBC website. |
| 0:48.7 | So that's what's been happening with the by-election. |
| 0:50.6 | Let's find out what's been happening with everything else in this episode of Newscast. |
| 1:14.8 | Newscast from the BBC. Humanity's next great voyage begins. We are in the midst of a rupture. Nostalgia will not bring back the old order. Six-seven. Yeah. It's supposed to be me as a doctor. Daddy has also a special connotation. Ooh-l-la-law. Thinking about it like a pantor helped. Do we play music now? What do we do? |
| 1:19.6 | Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio, and I will not be getting a high-speed rail line from West London to the centre of Birmingham anytime soon, because the flagship HS2 programme |
| 1:25.3 | is going to be even later than planned and cost even more than planned. |
| 1:31.0 | And the person who can tell us why we're hearing about this from the Transport Secretary, Heidi |
| 1:34.5 | Alexander in Parliament today, is the BBC's economics editor and professional future, not yet built, |
| 1:41.3 | train line watcher, Faisal Islam. |
| 1:43.7 | Hello, Faisal. Hello. Just explain to us |
| 1:45.6 | what we've actually got from the government today, because this all comes with a bundle of documents |
| 1:48.9 | as well, doesn't it? Yeah, there's a couple of documents that's come out. There's an update, |
... |
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