The high-speed rail network HS2 cannot be completed on its current schedule and budget and will be delayed beyond 2033, the government has said, blaming mismanagement by the previous Conservative administrations for the overruns.
The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, told parliament there was “no reasonable way to deliver” on the 2033 target for the first trains to run between London and Birmingham, after receiving a bleak assessment from the new HS2 Ltd chief executive, Mark Wild.
