Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether she plans to recover public money from contractors and suppliers whose actions contributed to cost overruns identified in the Lovegrove report.

Sir Steven Lovegrove's review contains a number of recommendations that the government will give due consideration, as it did with James Stewart’s review. The Lovegrove Review's terms of reference were not to duplicate prior inquiries but to take them as a starting point and to consider the implications for the Civil Service and the wider public sector. As such, it didn’t identify any new cost overruns.

As part of the ongoing HS2 Programme Reset, HS2 Ltd CEO Mark Wild is reviewing contracts to ensure the right incentives are in place to drive delivery and has tightened spending controls with new specialist roles scrutinising every payment to contractors and suppliers. That’s an approach that’s paying off, with six major construction milestones achieved ahead of their target date in 2025.