Transport mandarin insists she did not tell committee HS2 was 'coming in on budget and schedule'

Bernadette Kelly, permanent secretary at the Department for Transport (DfT), was grilled by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday about comments she made to it in May last year.

She told the committee: "I was actually quite careful in my remarks in 2019. I did not say that the project was coming in on budget and schedule.

"What I said was that the budget remained at that point £55.7bn, which it did. It had not been changed."

Ms Kelly accepted "we were aware that very significant cost pressures existed".

She went on: "We were still examining at that point choices around scope, which would have brought the project within budget."

Conservative MP Huw Merriman responded by suggesting to Ms Kelly that "if you actually know that the costs are overrunning, then that really rips up the budget".

Ms Kelly said she faces a "difficult balance" when she appears in front of select committees to combine the need for transparency with enabling HS2 Ltd to negotiate the best prices from its contractors.

"If you're too premature in announcing cost increases and potential budget changes, it becomes impossible actually to hold contractors' feet to the fire," she said.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave the green light for HS2 last month despite it running tens of billions of pound over budget and several years behind schedule.

The Government-commissioned Oakervee Review warned that the final bill could reach £106 billion at 2019 prices.