Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what (a) grades and (b) number of compliance staff support the HS2 Ltd conflicts of interest panel; and what that panel's annual budgets and expenditure to date has been.

There are currently two compliance staff who are responsible for receiving and processing conflicts of interest matters and escalating matters to the Panel, with a third staff member having recently joined. In addition, there are six senior representatives from HR, Finance, Procurement, Commercial and Legal (being the HS2 Ltd General Counsel) who attend the fortnightly Conflicts of Interest Panel meetings. The Conflicts of Interest Panel does not have a discrete annual budget. The costs of the Panel are the costs of the compliance staff and travel expenses.

The release of the grades of HS2 Ltd staff is governed by the Data Protection Act. The release of such information would contravene the first data protection principle and therefore cannot be disclosed.