Recommendation 25

Ensuring that enough people with the right skills and capability are available to the High Speed 2 programme at the right time is critical to its success. In reports from 2013, 2016 and 2020, both this and our previous Committees have highlighted the importance of skills and capability, and concerns with the Department’s progress in this area.56 The Department is responsible for a substantial investment programme, including Highways England’s and Network Rail’s investment in the strategic road network and the existing railways respectively, and forthcoming projects from the integrated rail plan, as well as High Speed 2.57 The National Infrastructure told us that addressing the skills shortage in the infrastructure sector should be a continuous focus for government.58 We asked HS2 Ltd whether it was confident that it had the skillset that it needed to complete High Speed 53 Qq 72–73 54 Qq 60–63 55 Qq 78 - 79 56 Committee of Public Accounts, High Speed 2: Spring 2020 update, Third Report of Session 2019–21, HC 84, 17 May 2020, conclusion 3; Committee of Public Accounts, Progress with preparations for High Speed 2, Fourteenth Report of Session 2016–17, HC 486, 14 September 2016, conclusion 4; Committee of Public Accounts, High Speed 2: a review of early programme preparation, Twenty-second Report of Session 2013–14, HC 478, 9 September 2013, conclusion 6 57 Q 116 58 Q 69; Oral evidence: HS2 recall – pre panel, HC 178, Qq 45–46, 48 18 HS2 Summer 2021 2 to the timetable and budget that had been set. HS2 Ltd replied that it was confident but not complacent and that there was increased demand for skills in construction from, for example, house building projects. HS2 Ltd told us that it was making good progress with its apprenticeships programme and that it was working with government and industry to ensure that the right supply of skills was available. HS2 Ltd also noted that the workforce for later phases of the programme, such as the installation of systems needed to ope