Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of progress on High Speed 2.

In March, the Department for Transport published ‘HS2: On track’, which summarises the considerable progress made on the project since 2010 and sets out the next steps. HS2 remains on track, both in terms of Parliamentary process and in terms of practical preparations permitted under the High Speed Rail (Preparation) Act.

The hybrid Bill for the first phase of HS2 is making good progress through Parliament. Of the 1,960 petitions received, over 500 have been dealt with so far during the Select Committee process, which began in July last year. This is approximately twice as many as were dealt with by the Crossrail Committee in 21 months of sittings.

Ground Investigation works have begun at both ends of the Phase One route. These works will inform the design stage of the major civil works due to start in 2017/2018, for which the initial stages of procurement of the enabling works have already commenced.

Following the close of the public consultation on the proposed route for Phase Two in January 2014, HS2 Ltd and the Department have been analysing route and station options as reflected in David Higgins’ reports of March and October 2014. The Government intends to announce the way forward on Phase Two later this year.

The Government has previously said it will deliver HS2 in the north sooner by preparing a dedicated hybrid Bill to lay during this Parliament. This is with a view to bringing HS2 to Crewe sooner than planned, subject to further analysis and decisions on preferred route. We will also look at the case for accelerating the construction of the route between Leeds and Sheffield, and allowing it to be used by for fast regional train services.