HS2 Rail Project Comes Under Renewed Attack

A public spending watchdog says the apparent benefits of the proposed high-speed rail link are dwindling as costs spiral.

Its promises to slush journey times between our major cities. But plans for HS2 are going too fast for parliament spending watchdog which is yet to be convinced it's worth the 50-billion-pound cost.

We can have been overoptimistic on time, overoptimistic on the benefits. Are they having gotten handled on the real costs of this? And if you really want to spend 50 billion pounds which you'll all do on infrastructure investment, there are better ways of spending it, sooner getting better benefit to the provincial cities.

In 2017 constructions due to start on HS2's first phase linking London with Birmingham if parliament approves. The estimated cost has gone up from 16 to 21 billion pounds. But MPs in the Public Accounts Committee are worries that the estimated return of that investment has gone down because of an error with how it was calculated. And they want a fresh analysis carried out before giving the go-ahead to phase 2.

The trouble of the authority's report is by the time they service, they can be out of date. But look , I'm determined that the points that are made by the National Audit Office, the points that are made by the major projects authority are points that we address ... prominent and we users' points are getting right.

As time moves on, it feels like HS2 is winning more enemies than friends. Former champions have turned skeptical. The Institute of Directors has called this a ground folly. Under debate, it's followed the Prime Minister all the way from here in Buckinghamshireto the G20 in Russia, where his pledge to fight back against the unholy alights opposing yes.

It seems strange in this austere time to hear the government fighting so hard to spend money. This week expected to make the case for HS2 even stronger.

Tygan Rise, Sky news.