Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on the feasibility of the proposed 2031 opening date for High Speed Rail Two.

We have recently published the second HS2 Parliamentary report with an update provided on potential Covid-related impacts on Phase One. HS2 Ltd is currently re-planning its schedule for Phase One to mitigate slower than planned progress on construction, including verified impacts from Covid-19. However, this will not impact the projected Delivery into Service date range of 2029-2033.

The full impact of Covid-19 on cost and schedule continues to be assessed, including work to disaggregate Covid-19 impacts from other cost and schedule impacts on the programme.