Mark Leftly: The track isn't built yet but the gravy train is running

Westminster Outlook Sir David Higgins publishes his much-anticipated report into revamping High Speed Two on Monday. The Aussie saviour of London 2012 will try the same trick by cutting £1.5bn of costs from the £50bn railway.

Braying MPs up and down the proposed London-to-Birmingham route are ready to point out that a 3 per cent saving is next to pointless. But a parliamentary answer this week showed that the consultancy Atkins is working on more than £40m of contracts, while CH2M Hill has already received £35m. A small part of HS2's budget, yes, but still an awful lot of money.

Is HS2 too big to fail?

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