Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many staff made redundant by HS2 Limited in (a) 2015, (b) 2016, (c) 2017, (d) 2018 and (e) 2019 had non-disclosure requirements included in their redundancy settlements.

Between 1 April 2015 to end of August 2019, HS2 Ltd have made a number of organisational changes (including the relocation of HS2 Ltd’s head office to Birmingham). These changes have resulted in a total 115 redundancies – details of which are published in each years’ Annual Report and Accounts. The details of how many people and the costs by financial year are published in HS2 Ltd’s annual report and accounts.

Of the 115 made redundant no one from HS2 Ltd has entered into a Non-Disclosure agreement. However, 31 of these individuals have entered into Settlement Agreements which contain mutual confidentiality obligations to protect individuals’ personal information such as what monies are owed. These obligations do not apply where information is required to be disclosed by law or where a protected disclosure is made by the employee under whistleblowing legislation. It should be noted that no one made redundant from HS2 Ltd has raised any such protected disclosure.