Lord Berkeley asked HMG what assessment they had made of reports alleging that HS2 Ltd did not disclose accurate cost estimates for the project and the Sunday Times offered a helpful list of what that £100 billion could have been spent on, including 270,000 nurses, 1 million council homes, 200 hospitals or 10,000 schools. I asked: Have this Government looted the public purse for so long—13 years—that they do not understand how important it is to keep track of this sort of alleged corruption?

Baroness Vere of Norbiton replied for HMG:

The noble Baroness will be unsurprised to hear that I do not agree. I do not normally comment on media articles, but this was a collection of old allegations which, as I said previously, the National Audit Office has established were unfounded. I also said that HS2 Ltd is looking at the allegation that has not yet been investigated, so I cannot comment on it. However, the noble Baroness is right that some good things have come out of the cancellation of HS2, such as the billions of pounds that we have been able to invest in the rest of the transport network in the north and the Midlands.

Read the whole debate here