Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department has taken to help ensure that the entirety of HS2 is delivered in a cost-effective manner.

We remain committed to focussing on cost control measures across the HS2 project. My Department has introduced new governance arrangements, including increased Ministerial oversight and accountability for this critical infrastructure project. We have this week released our third Parliamentary report, which sets out progress on the project, confirms that we remain within budget and schedule, and clearly demonstrates our commitment to transparently reporting progress against budgets.