Member

The noble Lord, Lord Grayling, mentioned electrification—I think he said on the East Coast Main Line, but he may have meant the Midland Main Line or both. He said that it got delayed or cancelled because of rising costs. In discussions a few months ago with the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin—who I think was his successor—it was clear that Network Rail and the new Secretary of State were absolutely adamant that they were not going to exceed the costs that had been allocated to a particular project. Network Rail came back and said that, suddenly, the estimate of the costs had increased so much that it could no longer afford, within the budget, to do this electrification, which I think all noble Lords think is a very good thing if it can be done. The Network Rail chief executive said, “Well, I am going to have to stop it. I’m not going ahead with it”. He said that, although there will be a lot of fuss in Parliament and in the regions, if we cannot do it within the budget, we should not do it. This is half the trouble we have at the moment: we do not have a clue how much so many things cost. As my noble friend alluded to, HS2 is one prime example of that, and it is still going on today.