The £100Bn HS2 Debacle

Summary

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Newscast: The £100Bn HS2 Debacle

Host: Adam Fleming (BBC News)
Guests: Faisal Islam (BBC Economics Editor), Tom Simons (BBC Correspondent)
Date: May 19, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Newscast tackles two significant UK news stories: the ongoing HS2 high-speed rail controversy—now dubbed the "£100 billion debacle" due to ballooning costs and delivery doubts—and a key development in the post-Grenfell fire investigation. The show mixes detailed analysis, candid commentary, and expert insights, focusing on how large-scale projects and inquiries expose challenges in UK policymaking, government accountability, and public expectations.

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Main Segment: HS2—Costs, Delays, and the Fiasco Explained

Headline Numbers & Government Update

[01:42 – 02:49]

• Adam Fleming introduces the topic: HS2's flagship high-speed rail line from West London to Birmingham faces further delays and cost overruns.
• Key Data Released by Government:
  • Official costs now estimated at £102.7 billion.
  • Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander issues a parliamentary statement and supporting documents, including a letter from HS2's chief executive Mark Wilde.

Dissecting the £102.7 Billion Figure

[03:01 – 04:25]

• Faisal Islam explains that much of the increase is due to inflation, previously unaccounted-for features ("bells and whistles"), and persistent overruns.
• “A third of the increase was because of inflation,” Adam Fleming notes on the government’s figures.

Memorable Quote

"A billion pounds a mile, which is unbelievable. One just needs to state this compared to anything else we've seen in the world—a truly extraordinary amount of money."
— Faisal Islam [06:11]

How Did Costs Spiral?

[04:36 – 07:14]

• Over-specification: HS2 designed for record speeds and minimal visibility in rural areas (“burying the least economically beneficial part ... in the ground, in tunnels and in verges”).
• Early construction led to unclear contracts and government assuming more risk.
• Political pressure after COVID, especially under Boris Johnson, drove government decisions to accept less favorable contracts and pay higher prices.

Notable Analogy

“It’s a bit like Wallace and Gromit laying out the track but literally not knowing... where you’re heading and therefore the whole process comes up.”
— Faisal Islam [05:44]

The "Stump" Line & Lost Ambition

[07:14 – 08:52]

• Adam Fleming recalls the original vision: a ‘Y’ line reaching Leeds, Manchester, and potentially Scotland—now reduced to Old Oak Common (outskirts of West London) to Curzon Street (Birmingham).
• Extraordinary costs for only a fraction of the network; the benefits intended for the North largely unrealized.

Political Context

“Even members of [David Cameron’s] own cabinet...fighting on behalf of their constituents to get it put in a tunnel... So it went in a tunnel."
— Adam Fleming [08:33]

Design Tradeoffs & Absurdities

[09:24 – 11:05]

• To shave costs, planned train speeds are lowered—negating the need for extremely expensive, high-speed rolling stock.
• Straight-line engineering for high speeds now results in inefficiency since the project won’t extend to longer “Y” branches.

“Because they were designed for the straight line ... join the West Coast Mainline [later], the high-speed trains ... will go slower than the existing trains right now.”
— Faisal Islam [10:16]

Cultural and Institutional Challenges

[15:09 – 18:17]

• Faisal Islam reflects on visiting the construction: astounding engineering, but juxtaposed with frustration from affected communities.
• Countries like Morocco, Uzbekistan, and Egypt are building comparable networks faster and cheaper—raising questions about the UK’s ability to deliver infrastructure.
• Property rights, planning delays, and political choices cited as causes of higher costs and slow delivery.

Reflection on UK System

“It’s a social choice, it’s a political choice. We choose, rightly or wrongly, to say the property rights of the people in the green shires north of London really matter and can stop a nationally important infrastructure project.”
— Faisal Islam [18:17]

Timeline & Future Prospects

[12:18 – 13:41]

• Probable earliest completion for full London (Euston)-Birmingham link is now 2043—or beyond.
• Even then, “the viaducts…the tunnels…would be extremely expensive to deconstruct” if canceled due to high build specs.

Memorable Moment

“We could just rename it...integrate it into the London tube system. That'd go down well.”
— Faisal Islam [20:06]

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Second Segment: Grenfell Tower—Progress Toward Criminal Prosecutions

Latest Update on Investigation

[22:07 – 29:37]

• Police to hand over evidence on the 2017 Grenfell fire (which killed 72) to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in September.
• Up to 57 individuals and 20 organisations could face charges ranging from corporate manslaughter to health and safety breaches.
• Trial(s) unlikely to begin before 2029 due to court backlogs; justice for affected families may be 10+ years after the disaster.

Families’ Reaction

“They think it's ridiculous to have to wait 10 or more years for justice, even if they get justice…”
— Tom Simons [26:37]

• Technical complexity: potential for building a replica of parts of Grenfell for trial evidence, as the physical tower will have been demolished.

Powerful Quote

“The criminal investigation will outlast the building that is being investigated.”
— Tom Simons [29:10]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:42] — Start of HS2 main coverage
• [03:01] — Breakdown of £102.7bn figure
• [06:11] — Unprecedented per-mile cost analysis
• [09:24] — Rationale for downsizing the project
• [13:00] — Timeline: 2036 to 2043 or beyond
• [15:09] — Site visit impressions and international comparisons
• [18:17] — Institutional and societal barriers in the UK
• [22:07] — Grenfell criminal proceedings update
• [26:37] — Families’ responses and legal process explanation
• [29:10] — The investigation outlasting the building

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Summary & Takeaways

• HS2’s cost crisis exposes not just specific mismanagement, but broader issues in British political, planning, and societal systems. The “fiasco” comes from a mix of inflation, hasty and ill-defined contracts, political tradeoffs, and a culture deeply attached to property rights and slow, consensus-driven infrastructure planning.
• Despite years and billions spent, only a small, less economically impactful section of HS2 may be built over the next two decades, undermining the original nation-rebalancing rationale.
• The Grenfell criminal investigation marks a milestone as files are prepared for prosecution, but the pace of justice is agonizingly slow for survivors and families, hindered by complexity and system backlogs.

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Final Thought

The tone is candid, sometimes wry, and deeply analytical—if also at times incredulous at the scale of institutional inertia and misadventure. This episode offers a sobering window into why bold national projects in the UK often falter and how, even after tragedy, justice and resolution can arrive only at a glacial pace.

Transcript

[Adam Fleming]

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.

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[Tom Simons]

hello.

[Adam Fleming]

Coming up is Tuesday's episode of Newscast where we're going to do a couple of stories that have hit the news today, none of which is the Makerfield by election, although there is a smidgen of news from that crucial contest. Andy Burnham has been confirmed as Labour's candidate. He has now been selected. He is the person fighting the seat for Labour Reform UK have also selected their candidate. He's a guy called Robert Kenyon and he is a plumber. A profession that's proved very popular amongst by election candidates this year, as you as a newscast and election cast listener will know. And a full list of the candidates that have been selected for the Makerfield by election so far is available on the BBC website. So that's what's been happening with the byelection. Let's find out what's been happening with everything else in this episode of Newscast,

[BBC Announcer]

Newscast, Newscast from the BBC.

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Humanity's next great voyage begins.

[Faisal Islam]

We are in the midst of a rupture.

[BBC Announcer]

Nostalgia will not bring back the old order. Six, seven. Yeah, it's supposed to be me as a doctor.

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Daddy has also a special connotation.

[Faisal Islam]

Ooh la la. Thinking about it like a panto helped.

[Tom Simons]

Do we play music now or what do we do?

[Adam Fleming]

Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio and I will not be getting a high speed rail line from West London to the centre of Birmingham anytime soon because the flagship HS2 program is going to be even later than planned and cost even more than planned. And the person who can tell us why we're hearing about this from the Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander in Parliament Today is the BBC's economics editor and professional future not yet built train line watcher, Faisal Islam. Hello, Faisal.

[Faisal Islam]

Hello.

[Adam Fleming]

Just explain to us what we've actually got from the government today, because this all comes with a bundle of documents as well, doesn't it?

[Faisal Islam]

Yeah, there's a couple of documents that's come out. There's an update, six monthly updates on the plan. There's a sort of reset announcement from Heidi Alexander which was part of a debate and conversation in the House of Commons and there's a very interesting three page letter which where Mark Wilde, the chief executive of the, of the program now where he tries to calculate what it would cost to cancel versus continuing and completing the project. So, and there's probably more documents, but those are the three that I've seen.

[Adam Fleming]

Okay, so let's talk about the headlines now. So the overall price has now risen to 102.7 billion pounds. Unpack that number for us. I mean we could spend several hours unpacking that number but.

[Faisal Islam]

Well, a lot of that, a lot of that actually was because they kept on pricing it not adjusted for inflation. And of course, as we know we've had, and we've had one inflation shock, a massive one, a double digit inflation shock and inflation and construction is even higher and then we may be starting another one right now. So that was a significant part of that. They've started to account for all the sorts of bells and whistles on the, on the, on the line that weren't accounted for. And they're obviously trying to what we

[Adam Fleming]

things that they were building or planning to build that hadn't been figured into the actual accounting of it.

[Faisal Islam]

Yeah, well, and, and increases in, in cost. And it's just worth reminding everybody this is just essentially London brackets in the early stages, not the center of London to Birmingham. It's not anything else which we'll probably get on to talking about that. And it's in a minute. And so 100 billion is an extraordinary number. As I say, take into account inflation. Taking into account some of the, some of the other other factors. I think they've tried to kitchen sink it, they've tried to sort of keep it below 100. I think 100 is, is the, is the highest but it's in 20, 25 prices which is, which is, which is key. So it factors the inflation that we've seen.

[Adam Fleming]

And, and Heidi Alexander, the Transport Secretary who was giving this statement in Parliament today said that a third of the increase was because of inflation.

[Faisal Islam]

Yeah.

[Adam Fleming]

And the other two thirds is those other things like not accounting for things that they were going to have to do or overruns or going for like the top of the range version of something when you could have gone for like a lower spec thing.

[Faisal Islam]

And so, and so this is, it's also sort of more color on some of the story we have already heard about as to why it has cost so much, which is as you, you just referred to the sort of over specification of a line in terms of its straightness. It's not making it visible in the shires north of London and south of Birmingham and all these other, the, these other factors. I think one of the key technical business reasons why we think it's cost so much is that they jumped the gun essentially on starting it in order to get shovels in the ground. And in so doing they set up a whole load of contracts where ultimately because the actual specifics weren't mapped out cleanly enough as they are doing more successful projects, the risk just fell back onto the government because they started building. It's a bit like sort of Wallace and Gromit sort of laying out the track but literally not knowing. I don't think Wallace comment know where it's going either. But you know, do you see what I mean? Not knowing exactly what, where you're heading and therefore the whole process comes up.

[Adam Fleming]

Yes. And also it was things I was hearing. There was a lot of pressure when Boris Johnson was Prime Minister and we were coming out of COVID to speed things up in that period. And that was the time where the construction companies had the whip hand because there was lots of pent up demand for construction and so they could name higher prices and contracts where they took on less of the risk for price increases and the government took on more. And that was an equation the government at that time was willing to swallow because it got them what they wanted,

[Faisal Islam]

which was building, building but at a now extraordinary cost of about a billion pounds a mile, which I mean is unbelievable. One just needs to state this compared to anything else we've seen in the world and a truly, truly extraordinary amount of money and it should be said that is to complete the part or the, the subsection of this train line which with the least economic benefit. Entire rationale of this line was to help rebalance Britain. I was there at the launch with Andrew Adonis 2000, possibly eight or nine under Transport Minister Gordon Brown. And then it got sort of fleshed out under Justine Greening and the like in the early days of the coalition. But the entire rationale and you could see it, you know, we're a long narrow island service sector economy is quite like Japan suits high speed rail to kind of help if you like, the whole of the island become part of a part of one coherent economy. Helps rebalance a lopsided economy.

[Adam Fleming]

That's, that's maybe yeah because the original plan was London to Birmingham and then a Y shape where one half of the Y went to Leeds, the other half went to Manchester and then eventually you could maybe even extended it from Manchester to Scotland.

[Faisal Islam]

Yeah.

[Adam Fleming]

And what we've ended up with now is, as you were saying, Old Common, which is in the outskirts of West London.

[Faisal Islam]

Yeah.

[Adam Fleming]

To Curzon street in Birmingham. And that's basically going to be it for a while.

[Faisal Islam]

That is what this, the amazing thing is that is what the cost is for literally the stump.

[Adam Fleming]

Oh, so this is not even including getting it from West London into Central London at Houston Station.

[Faisal Islam]

No, no. So I think it does include some of those costs. You're right.

[BBC Announcer]

But.

[Faisal Islam]

But I'm saying it doesn't include.

[Adam Fleming]

Get the why bit.

[Faisal Islam]

And so, I mean, I think I can categorically state is if they'd known that this part would have cost this amount of money, it never would have been, it never would have been commissioned in the first place. And then it goes a bit deeper. You sort of think about this and, and you. It could be said that the budget and more for the entire Y has been blown on essentially burying the least economically beneficial part of it, London to Birmingham or Old Oak Common to Birmingham, in the ground, in tunnels and in verges, in order to hide it from people in the shires.

[Adam Fleming]

Yeah. Because I remember at the time when David Cameron was Prime Minister, even members of his own cabinet, like Cheryl Gillen, I remember it so clearly, she was an MP for that part of the world and she was fighting on behalf of her constituents to get it put in a tunnel. And Cameron was under political pressure, had to cave, if you pardon my underground metaphor. And so it went in a tunnel.

[Faisal Islam]

Yeah. And so, and so when people ask, well, why can Japan. So Japan. Japan seems to be able to build high speed lines through the middle of mountains, like, you know, more cheaply than we have managed in the Chilterns. Okay. Which I have to say, different, a different size of, of hill. So it's, it's an extraordinary, it's, it's extraordinary, really is extraordinary to think that the, that the cash for essentially the entire project was spent on trying to pretend the project wasn't there in the least economically beneficial part of it.

[Adam Fleming]

And then. Help me understand this bit I can't quite get my head around, which is reducing the speed of the trains when they do eventually run on this line. How does that save money?

[Faisal Islam]

It saves money because it means that the trains don't need to be tested, which we can't do in the UK and we'd have to do somewhere else. They haven't bought the trains yet at these extremely high speeds, sort of to 220 miles an hour. And by lowering the speed, you don't have to do that. So that's a couple of billion saved right now if you just have this stump of London to Birmingham. I was trying to do the maths in my head and this was an involved physics question basically which I couldn't quite work out and I've forgotten all my physics. But you imagine if it's only. If it's only this sort of, you know, sub 100 mile line, like going 300 miles, it would barely have accelerated up to the top speed before it starts having to decelerate.

[Tom Simons]

Yeah.

[Faisal Islam]

And yet the whole line is designed to carry that speed. It's straight for that reason. And indeed, and this is the chef's kiss on this fiasco, frankly, is that because they were designed for the straight line was designed to accommodate the extremely high speed now they're no longer going north of Birmingham. The plan is eventually in the 2000-40s for it to join the west coast mainline. The west coast mainline is bendy and that therefore means that the high speed trains on the west coast mainline will go slower than the existing trains right now by 15 miles an hour because they can't tilt, as you all know. Yeah, so. So you literally will have slower trains than were specified for what's called High Speed 2.

[Adam Fleming]

And also this feeds into a bit into the findings of the review by Stephen Lovegrove, the, the former senior civil servant who carried it out. He said actually the company HS2 Limited that was set up to deliver the project, sort of became evangelists for the concept of high speed rail. And ever f. Rather than just a company that was there to get spades in the ground and deliver this railway efficiently.

[Faisal Islam]

Yeah. And deliver the capacity that is needed. Because the other.

[Adam Fleming]

Yeah, because the existing railway line is going to be full.

[Faisal Islam]

Well, this is a question mark. Well, I mean, I mean, and, and I think it is briefly worth unpacking this. The west coast mainland is, I think, the busiest mixed use line in the whole of Europe. 90 full 15 trains an hour and that's now. Right, 10, 15 years and. And then somehow you're going to get these much longer trains onto the same line, the west coast mainline, or the connection between London, Birmingham, Manchester and onto Scotland. And in reverse is a critical piece of infrastructure for this country, essential to the economy. It is full and the alternative now could help to some degree, but it's very, very messy. So I do actually wonder, despite the sort of overarching fiasco that I'm describing, whether the full line actually does in the end get built.

[Adam Fleming]

Okay. And just in Terms of the timelines. So there's various dates flying around and various date ranges. What is the sort of latest, latest date that people are talking about here? I think that would be Houston station.

[Faisal Islam]

Yeah.

[Adam Fleming]

In central London to Birmingham. That would be in, what, 2043. That would be something like.

[Faisal Islam]

And beyond. And then. And then beyond on the connection onto the west coast main Line.

[Adam Fleming]

Yeah.

[Faisal Islam]

So that's. You're talking 20, mid-2040s. Right. So I'll be 60, mid-2040s to get on a functioning HS2 train, albeit on a relatively small bit of track between Old Oak Common and Birmingham. You're talking 20, 10 years at the earliest. 13 years.

[Adam Fleming]

So maybe 2036.

[Faisal Islam]

2036, yeah.

[Adam Fleming]

So I'll only be 56 then.

[Faisal Islam]

Then you've got little details like when you arrive at Curzon street, this is a beautiful piece of architecture. We both went, didn't we, at all, once. And it's got. I think it's got four. Like, I forgot what you call them sort of floating bits of a viaduct.

[Adam Fleming]

Yeah.

[Faisal Islam]

That were meant to accommodate seven or eight platforms and only three will be functioning. Four will not have rail line or. So they'll just be empty. They'll just be there, be able to see them. Yeah. I don't know what they'll do.

[Adam Fleming]

Another one of the findings in these many documents came out today is that knocking down infrastructure that's no longer necessary or just giving up on the whole thing would cost so, so much more.

[Faisal Islam]

Now, this is. This is fascinating. Right. And one of the reasons is it's been built. Well, this is understandable, this, this high spec nature. It's built to be able to last 120 years. So we're talking about a piece of infrastructure that should last till 21, the 21 60s, who knows? I mean, I'm sure everyone will be flying in strange drone by this by then, but because it's been built to those spec, the viaducts, the tunnels, everything, it. It would be extremely expensive to deconstruct and the law requires you to remedy it back to what it was before. So filling in all the tunnels, dismantle the viaducts, whatever it is. Yeah, yeah. And so they came up with a piece of maths that I think, you know, I think people might argue with the exact point and they comes in ranges, but roughly speaking, the numbers that they point towards is that, yes, it's going to cost 60 billion to complete from here. 40 billion has already been spent, but it would also cost somewhere between 30, mid-30s and 60 billion to cancel. So that, that, that is their argument.

[Adam Fleming]

Yeah.

[Faisal Islam]

Of why we should push on.

[Adam Fleming]

You alluded to our little site visit that we did a few years ago in Birmingham as a sort of little side quest from the Tory Party Conference, because we got invited by HS2, didn't wait to come and have a look and put a hard hat on. And I know you've been to see various bits of it since and I went to see Old Oak Common in West London a few months ago. What were your just impressions as a human being seeing the building sites?

[Faisal Islam]

Well, I, I not only saw that an early stage, I also saw HS1 being completed in St Panos and you never get the chance to ever do this stuff again. It's like a giant road and people should have a go and have a look on Google Maps or something. You can. It's just sort of carving through in a relatively straight line, London to, to Birmingham. And it is remarkable piece of engineering. And there's lots of tunneling as well. And obviously you can see why the local communities were frustrated. There are little, beautiful little houses that have been compulsorily purchased, all that sort of stuff. But I think this is a point where you've got to think about the international context. You know, there are what we would have called emerging or developing countries building this sorts of infrastructure all around the world, much faster, much cheaper. Now, clearly they don't have the same attachment and understanding of property rights as we do in this country. Right. And that's why they're able to build it more cheaply. But in terms of this infrastructure, a number of non G7, non G20, frankly, emerging from, from Morocco to Uzbekistan to Egypt are now building trains that I think will train and train networks of this type of. A lot of it's funded by China. So, you know, what will happen is I think people will start to think, oh, do we not need this in this country? Do we not need this sort of infrastructure? Or are we falling behind other countries? Are we going to wait for some other quantum leap, as it were, in transport technology? But yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's been a, it's been a fiasco.

[Adam Fleming]

I've got two takeaways from seeing Old Common and one is actually about takeaways in that they have this system for carting away all the soil that they've dug out because they had to dig a massive, massive hole. And they've got this very complicated conveyor belt system that funnels all the, all the soil onto this conveyor belt, which then takes it quite a long way away from the actual hole. And that's so that they can then load it onto trucks in a way that causes minimum disruption to the local communities because people didn't want hundreds of trucks going past the schools every day and all night. One year it was kind of wetter than they were expecting and so therefore the soil expanded more, so they had more soil, more volume of soil to take away. And that was just a reminder to me of how these things are a little bit unpredictable and why you have to sort of build in lots of headroom and unpredictable kind of stuff on top of it. And then the other takeaway was just the bits of this that have been built are really big and really impressive. Old common will have 14 platforms and be connected to the high. Not the high speed link, but the existing rail line that goes west. It will be connected to the Elizabeth Line, which is the relatively new train line that goes across London and it will serve something like a hundred destinations. So it's a bit like building a huge new train station version of Waterloo, but actually in quite a small area of land that's surrounded by, yeah, houses, warehouses, schools, roads and existing railway lines. So just as a sort of like, bit of gee whiz stuff, it is occasionally quite impressive.

[Faisal Islam]

Yes. But it ra. This whole, this whole saga raises a fundamental question, which is more than about just train lines, transport infrastructure. It's about can we build the stuff that we need to function as an economy in a society and can we build it quickly enough? And it applies to housing, it applies to, you know, it applies to transport infrastructure applies, you know, and can we plan, can we think long term? And as I said, other nations that are rising can do this. There are various reasons why we're. We're not doing it, but it's a, it's not an accident. It's not just like our civil engineers are rubbish. It's a social choice, it's a political choice. We choose, rightly or wrongly, to say the property rights of the people in this, in the green shires north of London really matter and can stop a nationally important infrastructure project. It applies to nuclear power as well. It applies to the fact that we're generating a lot of green energy right now, but we don't have the pylon capacity to transmit it where it's needed because people don't like pylons either, you know, so. So I think occasionally people can fall into the mistake to say, well, just, you know, it's all Rubbish. And isn't it terrible? No, these are. Choice is right.

[Adam Fleming]

Yeah.

[Faisal Islam]

These are choices and these are choices that. That aren't being made elsewhere. And these are the consequences of them.

[Adam Fleming]

Well, Faisal, thank you very much. And I was going to say, I'll see you on HS2 when we've got our over 60s rail cards, but then, actually, the public finances might mean there won't be over 60s rail cards for us. They might be phased out by then. No.

[Faisal Islam]

And who knows how much the train journey on one of these things will actually cost? And you'll get no view either, because it'll be in a tunnel the whole time.

[Adam Fleming]

But, hey, we'll have the memories.

[Faisal Islam]

It'll be like a tube line. We could just rename it. We should integrate it into the London tube system. That'd go down well.

[Adam Fleming]

Yes. People outside London would love that. Anyway, thank you very much.

[Faisal Islam]

Thank you.

[Adam Fleming]

And for people who are less interested in trains and infrastructure than Faisal and me, HS1, which is the UK's only high speed rail link, opened a few years ago and it goes from St Pancras in London to the Kent coast. Although it's not really called HS1, when you get on it, it is very fast. I can confirm I was on it the other day, but it's also quite expensive. And it's also how hipsters get to Margate from East London.

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[Adam Fleming]

Now, a big development today in the Grenfell Tower fire situation. This is the fire in 2017 in a tower block that killed 72 people. And the development today is that the Metropolitan Police in London say they are preparing to hand files of evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service in September this year so that the CPS can then make a decision about bringing criminal charges. A long awaited moment by people who've been affected by the Grenfell Tower fire, by people who were angry about it, by people who wanted justice after it. Because it now looks like the justice process, the wheels are turning, the wheels having been sort of paused while there was an official inquiry into the fire which ended two years ago. So the person who can help us unpick all of this and work out what's happening is the BBC's Tom Simons, who's been covering this story for years and years and years and is in that part of West London for us now. Hi, Tom.

[Tom Simons]

Good evening.

[Adam Fleming]

Adam, just explain where you are at the moment and what the area looks like now all these years later.

[Tom Simons]

Well, Adam, I've been coming here for years covering this story and it's quite a shock to see the tower which is just behind me being reduced in size almost by the week. And the very iconic sign at the top of it, Grenfell forever in our hearts, put there by the community many years ago now, gradually coming down. As the tower comes down, I think they move the sign down as they remove each floor. And it's right next to the Kensington Academy and Leisure Centre, which played its own part in the Grenfell story. It's a brand or fairly new school and leisure centre and the view was that when that building was being built and they wanted to make it look good, that it would be not very good if Grenfell Tower next to it looked a bit old. It dates back to the 1970s, so that's why Grenfell was refurbished. And that was obviously a disastrous decision which led to flammable materials being put on its walls. But it's a great community. I've been coming here for years and, and have met a lot of people in this area and it is just this place here that has always been here. Everybody will always remember.

[Adam Fleming]

But, Tom, earlier on Today, you were at New Scotland Yard HQ of the Metropolitan Police for this briefing that they were giving to journalists. Why were they doing this now?

[Tom Simons]

Well, we're coming up to the ninth anniversary, if you can believe it, of the flight of the fire. And the police know that every single twist and turn of this criminal investigation has a resonance for the people in this area and the people who survived the fire. So they wanted to make sure that those victims and survivors knew exactly what was going on before we got anywhere near the difficulties that they'll almost certainly go through around the time of the anniversary. And so the news today is quite significant, though not conclusive, because the police are saying that they believe that they may be up to 57 in individuals and 20 companies or organizations that may face charges. What's the process? Well, they effectively put a file of evidence together and they pass that for each case to the Crown Prosecution Service, the prosecutors, and it's the prosecutors who have to decide whether there will be charges. But we are getting close now to September when those files will be handed over. As I said, a key moment in this long investigation, although it sounds like

[Adam Fleming]

some files have been handed over already. And so the process has sort of started.

[Tom Simons]

Yeah. What happens is the police over the years pass files of information, let's call it to the cps. And the CPS in return says, you need to go and find out this, or you need to consider the role of this person or this organization. There's a kind of advice process that goes on. So that's what's been going on. But the final process of handing over, if you like, the case to the CPS is the moment when the CPS takes control of these. These many cases. And they are complicated. We're looking at potential corporate manslaughter charges, gross negligence, manslaughter, fraud, which is obviously a complicated thing to investigate. Breaches of health and safety that can also be very complex. And so the CPS has a team of 20 lawyers and barristers who will have to look at this over the next year. And they've said it might take them a year, which means that it might not be till 6-20-27, before there are final decisions about charges. And that, of course, is 10 years since the fire.

[Adam Fleming]

Yeah, I can see why. Why what the police have said today is a milestone. But why do lots of people, particularly families who've been affected by this, think that it's still quite a long way off?

[Tom Simons]

Yeah. And Grenfell United, which is one of the bigger groups that represents people in this area who've been affected by Grenfell Tower. They said they're not celebrating. They think it's ridiculous to have to wait 10 or more years for justice, even if they get justice, they said in their statement. And another group, Grenfell next of kin, has often made the point to me that the inquiry into this tragedy, the public inquiry that took so many years to complete finished taking evidence in 2022 and delivered a report a few years after that that that came first, that Grenfell, next to kin, would much rather the police have decided on, on these charges before the inquiry. Now, that has happened in previous major disasters that I have covered, but in this case it didn't. I think part of the reason was that the police needed the inquiry to do a lot of that technical work around the causes of fire, the way fire spreads, the way materials are decided upon and used by the construction industry. Now, the police have done parallel work on that because they have to investigate a crime potentially, not just what happened and how it happened, but they felt that the inquiry was slowed down by the decision to come after their inquiry, to come after the public inquiry. But they don't think it's been impacted by it. So I think that's what they would say.

[Adam Fleming]

And Tom, just do the law school bit for us. How do the crime prosecution Service actually decide whether these cases, some of them, all of them, none of them actually go to court to be prosecuted?

[Tom Simons]

Well, they'll look at cases against individuals, cases against companies. They'll look at whether there's enough evidence. That's obviously a key decision. They have to be, if you like, 50% certain of getting a result in court. In the case of corporate manslaughter, that can be very complicated. The law has changed in the last 10 or so years and it can be very difficult to prove that a company is responsible for something like what happened here. So they have to. That's the first test, if you like, is there enough evidence? And then finally, is there a public interest in prosecuting? Now, in this case, it's hard to see that there wouldn't be a public interest in prosecuting a company or an individual for the loss potentially of 72 lives. But that is the second stage in what is a two stage test. And then of course, the case potentially may go to court and even that is fraught with difficulty because as we know, the Crown courts, and it would be in a Crown court, are absolutely stuffed with the cases on backlog. And therefore the best estimate of when we might see a trial begin is 2029 and potentially after that it's going to take a long time. And actually the police know this, so they're going to spend the time before now and then looking to build a replica of parts of Grenfell Tower so that when the jury is sworn in and has to start considering these complex matters, that they'll have something to look at. Because of course, this building is not going to be there. Sadly, the criminal investigation will outlast the building that is being investigated.

[Adam Fleming]

Tom, thank you very much for bringing us up to date on all of this and for all your hard work on this story for, as you said, nearly a decade now.

[Tom Simons]

Thanks, Adam. And it has been a long time, but I think there's a lot of people who are still waiting and they've been waiting a lot longer than I have for these results.

[Adam Fleming]

And that's all for this episode of Newscast. Thanks to everyone who's been on it and thanks to you for listening. We will be back with another one very soon. Bye bye.

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Could ending the war in Lebanon hold the key for a deal between the United States and Iran? I'm Tristan Redman.

[Asma Khalid]

And I'm Asma Khalid. And together we host the Global Story podcast from the BBC.

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Talks to end the war have stalled with Iran's insistence on an end to the war in Lebanon. A sticking point.

[Asma Khalid]

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