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Hello there, I'm Alicia McCarthy.

Thanks for downloading the yesterday in Parliament podcast.

On Tuesday, the 19th of May, the Transport Secretary revealed the latest estimated price tag

for the high-speed train line HS2.

If you're an avid train spotter,

you're going to be polishing your camera lens for a little while yet.

We now expect first services to run from Old Oak Common to Birmingham-Kersen Street

between May 2036 and October 2039.

And the Transport Secretary warned MPs the full HS2 route from Birmingham into London,

Houston might not be open until 2043. That announcement about the delayed start date came as Heidi

Alexander also gave MPs the latest price tag. Back in 2011, the estimated cost was £32 billion.

Now she revealed it was forecast to be somewhere between 87 and £102 billion.

Two-thirds of this increase is down to past misunderstanding of the work required,

underestimestimation and inefficiency.

Issues within the control of HS2 Limited, some of its suppliers and previous governments.

But she insisted things would be different this time, with the project now being led by Mark Wilde,

who'd previously turned around London's crossrail project, now called

the Elizabeth Line. And Heidi Alexander quoted a review by Sir Stephen Lovegrove, which highlighted

gold plating of the original HS2 plans. It talks about the focus, and I quote, on the highest

possible speeds, resulting in bespoke and highly engineered design.

Madam Deputy Speaker, to translate, it was a massively overspecked folly, with the prospect

...