Opinion | Northern Powerhouse Rail Cannot Become HS2: Britain Has Already Paid Too High a Price for Getting Megaprojects Wrong
- Safer Highways
- Jul 13
- 4 min read
The warning from the Public Accounts Committee should not be dismissed as another Westminster committee producing another report that will gather dust on a shelf.
If anything, it should be regarded as the single most important intervention in the future of Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) since the Government committed £45 billion to the programme earlier this year.
The committee's conclusion is stark: there is no convincing, fully costed plan to deliver the railway within the announced funding envelope. For anyone who watched the slow-motion collapse of HS2's original vision, the language is hauntingly familiar.
That should concern everyone.
Not because Britain should abandon Northern Powerhouse Rail, but because we simply cannot afford another decade of political promises, spiralling costs and diminishing public confidence in infrastructure delivery.
The north deserves better than that.
The North Doesn't Need Another Promise
There is almost universal agreement that the North of England needs better rail connectivity.
For decades, businesses have argued that poor east-west connections suppress productivity, limit labour mobility and discourage investment. Journey times between some of our largest northern cities remain slower than comparable European regions despite billions already being invested.
The economic case has rarely been the issue.
The delivery model has.
Successive governments have announced versions of Northern Powerhouse Rail since 2014, each carrying different names, different maps and different levels of ambition. What has remained remarkably consistent is the lack of certainty.
The Public Accounts Committee has highlighted questions that should have been answered before ministers announced a £45 billion funding commitment.
Where exactly will the railway go?
Who is responsible for delivering it?
What benefits will each phase produce?
How much will each section actually cost?
These are not minor technical details.
They are fundamental questions that should underpin every major infrastructure programme.
HS2 Wasn't a Failure of Engineering
It is fashionable to describe HS2 as an engineering failure. It wasn't.
British engineers delivered extraordinary tunnelling, bridge construction and complex railway systems despite constantly shifting political direction.
HS2 became a failure of governance.
Repeated scope changes.
Political interference.
Optimistic cost assumptions.
Unclear accountability.
Poor programme control.
As Sir Jon Thompson, former Chief Executive of HS2 Ltd, once observed:
"If you change scope continuously, costs will inevitably increase."
That lesson applies just as much to Northern Powerhouse Rail.
The Public Accounts Committee is right to question how the Treasury arrived at a fixed £45 billion funding cap before detailed design work has even been completed.
Major infrastructure simply does not work that way.
Cost certainty comes after design maturity—not before.
Political Numbers Are Not Engineering Numbers
Perhaps the most concerning aspect of the report is not the budget itself.
It is how that budget appears to have emerged.
The committee openly questions how ministers could confidently announce a £45 billion ceiling without knowing the final alignment, station designs or delivery strategy.
Infrastructure professionals understand something politicians often struggle to accept:
Budgets are outputs.
They are not inputs.
You cannot decide a project's final cost before fully understanding what you intend to build.
Doing so creates exactly the behaviour that damaged HS2.
Designs become compromised.
Scope is quietly reduced.
Benefits disappear.
Eventually, the public is left wondering why they paid billions for something much smaller than originally promised.
The Manchester Question Symbolises the Bigger Problem
Nothing illustrates this better than the continuing debate over Manchester Piccadilly.
Whether the station is built underground or remains at surface level is not simply an engineering choice.
It fundamentally changes capacity, operational flexibility and the long-term usefulness of the network.
Andy Burnham has consistently argued that an underground through station is essential if Manchester is to become a genuinely integrated transport hub.
Others point to estimates suggesting this could add around £5 billion to the overall programme.
Neither side is necessarily wrong.
The real issue is that these questions remain unresolved while a supposedly fixed funding envelope has already been announced.
That is planning backwards.
Confidence Is Now Britain's Biggest Infrastructure Deficit
Perhaps the greatest casualty of HS2 has not been money.
It has been trust.
Public trust.
Investor confidence.
Industry confidence.
Every major transport announcement is now met with scepticism.
Will it happen?
Will it be cancelled?
Will costs double?
Will another government redesign everything?
Infrastructure relies upon confidence.
Contractors invest.
Manufacturers expand.
Skills are developed.
Supply chains recruit.
All of that depends on certainty.
When government repeatedly changes direction, everyone pays the price.
Lessons Exist—If Government Is Prepared to Learn Them
The Department for Transport insists Northern Powerhouse Rail will not repeat HS2's mistakes, pointing to its acceptance of every recommendation made by the James Stewart Review.
That is encouraging.
But reviews alone do not deliver successful programmes.
Culture does.
Governance does.
Transparency does.
Independent scrutiny does.
The Public Accounts Committee is absolutely right to demand far greater clarity before billions more are committed.
This should not be viewed as delaying progress.
It is protecting progress.
Good scrutiny is rarely the enemy of delivery.
Poor scrutiny almost always is.
Britain Cannot Afford Another HS2
Northern Powerhouse Rail remains one of the most important transport investments Britain could make.
Done properly, it could reshape regional economies for generations.
Done badly, it risks becoming another cautionary tale taught in future project management courses.
The warning from MPs should therefore not be interpreted as opposition to Northern Powerhouse Rail.
It is exactly the opposite.
It is an attempt to ensure the project actually succeeds. After all, Britain's infrastructure challenge has never been a lack of ambition. It has been an inability to consistently turn ambition into delivery. The North has waited long enough. It deserves certainty rather than slogans, governance rather than guesswork, and delivery rather than delay.
If ministers truly have learned the lessons of HS2, this is the moment to prove it—not with another announcement, but with a fully designed, transparently costed and realistically deliverable railway.
Because if Northern Powerhouse Rail repeats the mistakes of HS2, it will not simply be another failed rail project.
It will represent another lost generation of opportunity for the North of England—and that is a price no Treasury spreadsheet can truly measure.
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