Anti-HS2 campaigners welcome damning report which accuses government of hiding soaring costs of £106billion rail project

Computer-generated visuals of a high speed train. HS2.

The Public Accounts Committee said the Department for Transport (DfT) and HS2 Ltd had been “blindsided by contact with reality” in the report published on Sunday.

It said HS2 was "badly off course" and accused the DfT of hiding details of overrunning and spiralling costs from MPs.

Members of Parliament sitting on the committee urged the government to regularly update Parliament with "accurate" information on the project.

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Among its conclusions, the committee claimed they were misled by DfT permanent secretary, Bernadette Kelly, and HS2 Ltd executives Mark Thurston and Michael Bradley.

The report has been welcomed by HS2 critics who said the alleged cover-up of the project was ‘a deliberate conspiracy’.

Stop HS2 campaign manager, Joe Rukin, said: “Right from the start, HS2 has been a train designed to run on lies. The fundamental philosophy driving the project for over a decade has been to hide the truth, because the justifications for building HS2 were only invented after vested interest lobbyists persuaded Government to back the scheme.”

“The Public Accounts Committee report is quite clear, there has been a deliberate conspiracy to hide the truth about the costs of HS2 from the public and to mislead parliament. In our minds, this is not just a breach of trust, this is malfeasance in public office, this is fraud.”

Penny Gaines, chair of Stop HS2, added: “This is no real surprise to us, as HS2 Ltd have been willing to mislead the general public and people affected by the project, almost from the start.

“Having failed to properly make allowances for the changes made during the hybrid bill stage, they are now blaming Parliament for going too fast, when in fact it was HS2 Ltd and the Department for Transport pushing this project through as fast as they could in spite of obvious design problems.

“We have said for years that HS2 was struggling to keep costs under control and the schedule was long since unachievable. HS2 should be cancelled as soon as possible.”