Chesham & Amersham MP calls the Transport Secretary to look into HS2 firms
Sarah Green says the Department for Transport must investigate which firms are benefiting from taxpayer money
Last updated 15th Mar 2022
Member of Parliament for Amersham and Chesham, Sarah Green, has called on the Transport Secretary Grant Shapps to conduct an audit into the firms contracted with HS2.
The MP wrote a letter to Mark Thurton, CEO of HS2, and Grant Shapps last week calling for the high speed railway line to cut ties with the pro-Putin oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
One of Deripaska’s companies held a stake in engineering firm Strabag, who has a contract with HS2. Today (15th March 2022), Strabag announced that they were cutting ties with Deirpaska’s firm.
Sarah Green told us she welcomed the decision, saying “the letter I wrote to Mark Thurston, the CEO of HS2, and the Transport Secretary was about cutting that particular tie which I’m pleased has happened.
“But more importantly doing an audit of all the contractors and all the people involved, to make sure there’s no one else who’s been sanctioned by the UK who’s benefiting from taxpayers money on projects like HS2.”
The MP said it was important that the Department for Transport confirms what companies are using taxpayer money:
“If we’ve got people who have been sanctioned we’ve got to make sure that they haven’t hidden behind their trading companies. We’ve just got to make sure that we close off all of those avenues that they might have.
“So I think auditing who we’ve got on our books and what links do they have to Putin, and making sure that we don’t give an inch is really important.”