Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the HS2 budget is for bat protection and mitigation.

HS2 Ltd does not have a specific bat protection budget. Most environmental and ecological mitigations - such as hedgerow, wetland, woodland or grassland creation - will be deployed to mitigate the impact of construction upon multiple species. As such, it is not possible to isolate a proportion of the cost of these mitigations to specific bat protection.

In some circumstances, obligations to protect specific bat populations can arise from legislative and regulatory arrangements, or from undertakings and assurances given to Parliament through the hybrid Bill process. Where this is the case, HS2 Ltd will seek physical or ecological solutions that fulfil the requirements of those obligations to the satisfaction of licensing authorities such as Natural England, but which also take account of the need to provide value for money to the taxpayer.