HS2 Reset: Evidence to Transport Committee - 9 July 2025 "Total overspend on high-speed rail could be as much as 100%"

[mmh]

Getting more frequent services because your local line isn't full of trains whipping past isn't a benefit?

Hint: the people who have to suffer the construction aren't in Milton Keynes.

 

[JamesT]

These benefits don’t exist south of Birmingham because the people affected by the construction don’t live on the west coast or midland mainlines.

Except the line doesn’t go anywhere near Milton Keynes and Luton.

Are those stations not on the WCML?

 

[MatthewHutton]

Are those stations not on the WCML?

West Ruislip, Wendover, Aylesbury, Buckingham, Brackley and Kenilworth aren’t on the West Coast mainline, no.

 

[JamesT]

West Ruislip, Wendover, Aylesbury, Buckingham, Brackley and Kenilworth aren’t on the West Coast mainline, no.

You were responding to

Or you could just have all trains running fast from OOC to (at least) Birmingham Interchange and the people of Milton Keynes and Luton can continue using conventional services.

 

[MatthewHutton]

You were responding to

I responded to two points, firstly to say that a respectable share of customers weren’t going to London from larger places on the mainlines and secondly to say that HS2 didn’t go anywhere near Milton Keynes or Luton.

This sort of not caring about anyone outside the big cities is why people in small northern towns are protest voting for literal nazis like Restore. So if we want to stop that it would be helpful for people to have looked at a map before saying additional HS2 stations aren’t desirable.

 

[Krokodil]

Except the line doesn’t go anywhere near Milton Keynes and Luton.

The "high speed metro" someone was proposing (every other gate post all the way to Edinburgh) would have done.

40% of Luton trips are to London and 60% of Milton Keynes ones are.

It’s hardly overwhelming and the non London ones are cheaper to provide.

They will be able to make do with all of the newly-vacant seats on the residual service then. No more through passengers to do battle with.

 

[MatthewHutton]

They will be able to make do with all of the newly-vacant seats on the residual service then. No more through passengers to do battle with.

Not really particularly relevant though given they aren’t affected by the HS2 construction.

 

[Krokodil]

This sort of not caring about anyone outside the big cities is why people in small northern towns are protest voting for literal nazis like Restore. So if we want to stop that it would be helpful for people to have looked at a map before saying additional HS2 stations aren’t desirable.

Aylesbury has a population of 90k. There's absolutely no justification for adding a stop on HS2 for them. No one serious is arguing for that.

If they want to argue (as I believe one MP did at the recent debate) that Aylesbury should be connected to EWR (something that was approved but the funding later pulled) then I'm all in favour.

 

[NCT]

Not this again ...

The 100mph Chiltern Main Line is a fast conventional railway by any European standards.

 

[MatthewHutton]

There’s a separate thread for this.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Because the people who have to suffer the construction don’t get the benefits.

EDIT: It isn’t the only cost driver as the gold plating for speed definitely doesn’t help but it is a cost driver.

I know lets build lots of motorways instead and put in junctions every mile or so.

It is never going to be totally fair. The starting point for HS2 was to get the fastest (non-stop) trains off the WCML so existing smaller stations on the WCML can be better served. The route chosen for HS2 does not go through particularly large towns where a station would be justified AND the capacity of HS2 needed to be saved for the longer distance FAST services.

I responded to two points, firstly to say that a respectable share of customers weren’t going to London from larger places on the mainlines and secondly to say that HS2 didn’t go anywhere near Milton Keynes or Luton.

That is why there are no stations on HS2 between Old Oak Common and Birmingham Interchange.

This sort of not caring about anyone outside the big cities is why people in small northern towns are protest voting for literal nazis like Restore. So if we want to stop that it would be helpful for people to have looked at a map before saying additional HS2 stations aren’t desirable.

The only way to get round this would be to not bother building HS2 and let the people living along the WCML suffer a poorer and poorer service as demand for major cities continues to rise. I think the designers did look at a map to ensure their decision to omit intermediate stops was fine.

 

[The Ham]

Whilst there's no train stations in the Chilterns due to HS2 and they will have to deal with construction, they will benefit from HS2, it's just nuanced and not that easy to explain.

Firstly, whist a lot of HS2 travel is counted as "new" it's travel which would happen due to population growth.

Without HS2, that's likely to mean more traffic using the M40, which is likely to mean more times when it's congested and more times that people divert off the M40 though the local roads.

Even without population growth (and counter to popular belief, most growth is in the 65+ population with the working age population being fairly flat) you don't need significant numbers of people switching from road to rail to see improvements to road congestion.

Likewise, if Birmingham is the same commuting time as Aylesbury it means that the pressure for housing reduces outside of the existing urban areas.

If there was a station (or indeed multiple stations) on HS2 within the gap between Old Oak Common and Birmingham Interchange, that would then result in thousands of new homes being delivered near that new station. The impact from that would be far bigger than the impact from building HS2.

I'm sure that there's more, however, that should be enough to explain why there's advantages to being bypassed by HS2.

 

[Mark J]

Aylesbury has a population of 90k. There's absolutely no justification for adding a stop on HS2 for them. No one serious is arguing for that.

If they want to argue (as I believe one MP did at the recent debate) that Aylesbury should be connected to EWR (something that was approved but the funding later pulled) then I'm all in favour.

I certainly agree that Aylesbury should be connected to East West Rail.

It is stupid that this had the funding pulled.

 

[FMerrymon]

I certainly agree that Aylesbury should be connected to East West Rail.

It is stupid that this had the funding pulled.

You can see it in this video, this stretch is all 4 track for a future Aylesbury Link.

.

It needs this section complete and hs2 running for the capacity to reach MK, so funding can't really be allocated until they get that sorted.

 

[gravitystorm]

The Green Signals podcast have covered the latest Transport Committee meeting, with about 20 minutes of discussion covering the first half of the committee meeting.

HS2 planned to use tech that “hasn’t been invented yet”… Really?! – Green Signals

www.greensignals.org

Richard Bowker is quite sceptical on a few points raised in the meeting, including whether using ATO with ETCS would have to be "invented" (rather than just adapted from the current use of ATO with ETCS on Thameslink), whether the initial opening intensity of 3 tph really leaves HS2 unable to do any testing for the original deliverables (e.g. for ATO or 360kph), and also questions whether Peter Hendy is correct that HS1 can be used for rolling stock testing, given that the plan to equip HS1 with ETCS is currently scheduled for the mid-late 2030s.

He also questions why, given that the "railway systems" installation is described as a "factory process", is it going to take at least 7 years from the end of civil engineering (currently targeting 2029) and the railway opening (earliest 2036). Is it Treasury cash flow restrictions? Or something else? I look forward to hearing more about the length of this part of the process because it also seems like a long time given it's the more certain and predictable part.

 

[Technologist]

The "high speed metro" someone was proposing (every other gate post all the way to Edinburgh) would have done.


They will be able to make do with all of the newly-vacant seats on the residual service then. No more through passengers to do battle with.

Here is what you are missing, the point of the metro is not to optimise the long distance journeys it is to massively interconnect the country whilst also providing adequate long distance connectivity.

This is the anticipated passenger flows on one line of the "Super Metro" network based on a gravity model, this assumes a high frequency service. The upper right half shows the existing typical journey time and the other number is the time on the super metro. The lower left half shows anticipated passenger flows between the city pairs.

The gravity model is probably optimistic but only 373 people a year go between Milton Keynes and Luton so any attempt to extrapolate a market where one does not exist is fruitless. Clearly two cities with 250k populations 8 minutes apart by train are like to have millions of journeys per year.

I also benchmarked where we do have a market using the existing numbers and some established factors (journey times ^-1.35, 1.4X due to increased frequency, 2.5x if the journey drops under an hour x4 if drops under 25 min). These give numbers of 1.5-3 times less than the gravity model suggests. So these numbers would be representative of what would happen if you built the super metro and then improved local transport to London esq levels.

Origin / Destination	London	Luton	M. Keynes	Northamp.	Leicester	Nottingh.	Sheffield	Leeds	York	Middl.	Newc.
London	—	23m / 10m	32m / 20m	46m / 29m	65m / 41m	94m / 51m	120m / 64m	133m / 75m	112m / 84m	2h35 / 1h41	2h50 / 1h53
Luton	18.5M	—	65m / 8m	60m / 16m	55m / 28m	1h35 / 38m	2h05 / 51m	2h25 / 62m	2h40 / 71m	3h40 / 1h28	3h25 / 1h41
Milton Keynes	14.2M	4.8M	—	15m / 7m	1h40 / 19m	2h00 / 29m	2h10 / 42m	2h20 / 53m	2h30 / 62m	3h50 / 1h20	3h20 / 1h32
Northampton	8.1M	2.6M	3.9M	—	60m / 11m	1h30 / 21m	2h15 / 34m	2h40 / 45m	2h55 / 54m	4h10 / 1h11	3h45 / 1h24
Leicester	9.5M	2.1M	3.2M	3.5M	—	22m / 8m	55m / 21m	1h50 / 32m	1h55 / 42m	3h00 / 1h00	2h50 / 1h12
Nottingham	9.2M	1.8M	2.5M	2.4M	5.1M	—	50m / 11m	1h25 / 23m	1h45 / 32m	3h10 / 50m	2h45 / 1h03
Sheffield	7.4M	1.2M	1.6M	1.5M	2.9M	4.6M	—	40m / 10m	50m / 19m	2h10 / 37m	1h50 / 49m
Leeds	11.8M	1.5M	1.9M	1.7M	3.4M	4.9M	8.2M	—	22m / 8m	1h25 / 26m	1h20 / 38m
York	4.2M	550k	680k	610k	1.1M	1.4M	2.1M	4.5M	—	55m / 15m	55m / 27m
Middlesbrough	2.1M	410k	490k	380k	750k	980k	1.5M	2.9M	1.8M	—	60m / 12m
Newcastle	6.5M	850k	950k	810k	1.4M	1.8M	2.4M	4.6M	3.1M	3.8M	—
Total	91.5M	34.3M	34.2M	25.5M	32.9M	34.6M	33.4M	45.4M	20.0M	15.1M	26.2M

The key point is this, the super metro line would likely cost a comparable amount to HS2 (depends on what baseline you used, given HS2's cost inflation there would be paths to doing it cheaper), but the economic consequences of having this level of interconnectivity would be massive, we are essentially turning large fractions of the country into single travel to work areas. We could justify having national level facilities located in Middlesbrough as it is less than 2 hours from London and less than 1 hour from Manchester.

 

[SynthD]

Here is what you are missing, the point of the metro is not to optimise the long distance journeys it is to massively interconnect the country whilst also providing adequate long distance connectivity.

Metro, long distance, rules of physics. Pick two. You have chosen the first two, HS2 picks the latter two.

 

[Palmerston]

Here is what you are missing, the point of the metro is not to optimise the long distance journeys it is to massively interconnect the country whilst also providing adequate long distance connectivity.

Origin / Destination	London	Luton	M. Keynes	Northamp.	Leicester	Nottingh.	Sheffield	Leeds	York	Middl.	Newc.
Northampton	8.1M	2.6M	3.9M	—	60m / 11m	1h30 / 21m	2h15 / 34m	2h40 / 45m	2h55 / 54m	4h10 / 1h11	3h45 / 1h24

While I think the super metro might be a bit far-fetched, I do think Northampton should be reconnected to Leicester and Nottingham etc, which is feasible, if not very simple. Especially once the southern end of the WCML has some spare capacity.

 

[FMerrymon]

Metro, long distance, rules of physics. Pick two. You have chosen the first two, HS2 picks the latter two.

I'd say it picked all three, since the metro is what you'd run on the sections of wcml, mml and ecml being bypassed.

 

[Krokodil]

I'd say it picked all three, since the metro is what you'd run on the sections of wcml, mml and ecml being bypassed.

Yes, but not trying to do all three on the same line!

 

[absolutelymilk]

Away from HSMetro for a second, I'm confused as to why they need to wait until 2029 or later (2029 is if the weather is ok for groundworks over the next few summers) to start laying the rails. Looking at the civils works in your area list on the HS2 site, they seem to almost all finish in 2026 or 2027 - is there another stage that needs to take place between civils finishing and laying the rails?

 

[InTheEastMids]

Away from HSMetro for a second, I'm confused as to why they need to wait until 2029 or later (2029 is if the weather is ok for groundworks over the next few summers) to start laying the rails. Looking at the civils works in your area list on the HS2 site, they seem to almost all finish in 2026 or 2027 - is there another stage that needs to take place between civils finishing and laying the rails?

I think it's that Mark Wild wants to derisk the delivery but minimising overlap between civils and rail systems.
This also probably reduces annual spend and that keeps HMT less unhappy, even though it is probably a worse VfM approach because you have time for more inflation and defer benefits by opening later

 

[zwk500]

Away from HSMetro for a second, I'm confused as to why they need to wait until 2029 or later (2029 is if the weather is ok for groundworks over the next few summers) to start laying the rails. Looking at the civils works in your area list on the HS2 site, they seem to almost all finish in 2026 or 2027 - is there another stage that needs to take place between civils finishing and laying the rails?

Assuming that:
- HS2 list is complete for civils,
- civils includes things like drainage,
- installation of things like maintenance accesses can come after track laying.
Then the big thing that would come between civils and the track slab would likely be the tunnel systems. Fire, Ventilation, Evacuation etc.

The first cross-passage door in the Chiltern tunnel has only just been installed: https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/article...rst-tunnel-safety-door-being-installed-90142/, so there's a way to go yet.

 

[Technologist]

Metro, long distance, rules of physics. Pick two. You have chosen the first two, HS2 picks the latter two.

Go on what rules of physics does a high speed metro disobey?

1: Accelerations are the same as a tube train they just go on for longer, they are less vigorous than on buses and are about equivalent to climbing a wheelchair ramp. It's rate of onset of acceleration that matters more than absolute g force pulled.
2: The acceleration is well within the capability of a battery electric vehicle and current BEVs are fitted with drive trains that can deliver super car acceleration for about £30k
3: Line speed is the same as HS2, the batteries mean that current draw would be less peaky per train
4: We would be using eddy current brakes so we can stop the trains at ~2ms-2 in an emergency regardless of traction available

It seems that most the objections are based on ether some assumption that some passengers would not be able to handle the acceleration or that having an interior more like a Thameslink train would not be acceptable for long distance travellers. Neither of these are physics based and neither are really supportable.

I have colour coded the chart so you can visually see what the passenger make up is:

Colour	Duration	Percentage
Light Green	8-25 minutes	48%
Olive Green	25-60 minutes	31%
Yellow	60-90 minutes	15%
Red	90-113 minutes	5%

So what we can see is that a metro type interior is actually much more suitable for this sort of train, no need for reservations, people travelling a long way will just take seats when people get off at the next stop after they board. Half of people are on the train are there for less than 25 minutes.

Just out of interest the total number of passenger km on this service is 86 billion, which compares to 65 billion for the entire national rail service today. That is for 520km of twin track lines and 11 stations, even if this cost £150bn to build and the passenger numbers were halved it would be incredibly profitable. I should also add that while the gravity model is likely a little optimistic in practice we'd likely build or upgrade a fair number of other lines to a similar standard so we would see plenty of additional interchange passengers on the line which are not counted in these flows.

 

[The Ham]

Go on what rules of physics does a high speed metro disobey?

1: Accelerations are the same as a tube train they just go on for longer, they are less vigorous than on buses and are about equivalent to climbing a wheelchair ramp. It's rate of onset of acceleration that matters more than absolute g force pulled.
2: The acceleration is well within the capability of a battery electric vehicle and current BEVs are fitted with drive trains that can deliver super car acceleration for about £30k
3: Line speed is the same as HS2, the batteries mean that current draw would be less peaky per train
4: We would be using eddy current brakes so we can stop the trains at ~2ms-2 in an emergency regardless of traction available

It seems that most the objections are based on ether some assumption that some passengers would not be able to handle the acceleration or that having an interior more like a Thameslink train would not be acceptable for long distance travellers. Neither of these are physics based and neither are really supportable.

I have colour coded the chart so you can visually see what the passenger make up is:

Colour	Duration	Percentage
Light Green	8-25 minutes	48%
Olive Green	25-60 minutes	31%
Yellow	60-90 minutes	15%
Red	90-113 minutes	5%

So what we can see is that a metro type interior is actually much more suitable for this sort of train, no need for reservations, people travelling a long way will just take seats when people get off at the next stop after they board. Half of people are on the train are there for less than 25 minutes.

Just out of interest the total number of passenger km on this service is 86 billion, which compares to 65 billion for the entire national rail service today. That is for 520km of twin track lines and 11 stations, even if this cost £150bn to build and the passenger numbers were halved it would be incredibly profitable. I should also add that while the gravity model is likely a little optimistic in practice we'd likely build or upgrade a fair number of other lines to a similar standard so we would see plenty of additional interchange passengers on the line which are not counted in these flows.

View attachment 205431

"a little optimistic" is likely doing a LOT of heavy lifting there.

Take for instance Milton Keynes, the current rail departures for the year are 3,050,000, whist the table above suggests that just going to London would be around 7.1 million.

That's an uplift from around 10 rail departures per head of population to 23 rail departures per head of population.

Given the UK average is 10.5 (21 total rail trips) per head of population and London sees 26.5 and the next highest regions (South East and East) sees around 14, that's quite a large increase.

The reason London is so high is liken due to Overground and other heavy rail Metro services. Although it's worth noting that doesn't include London Underground, which roughly doubles the numbers.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Jun 2026 ==

I have my thoughts (and some could likely guess at what they are from what I've said), but would be interested in what others think of this assessment:

Letter: HS2 consultants are blindly leading the UK into a ditch https://share.google/E1dkXVzubaRDpaN6o

Your article on HS2’s consultancy spending (Report, May 26) invites a deeper question. The Katha Upanishad warns: “Like the blind led by the blind, fools go hither and thither.” Matthew said both shall fall into the ditch. Pieter Bruegel painted them. HS2 is Britain’s ditch. But were all truly blind, or did some keep their eyes wide open?

HS2’s original £37.5bn estimate was set before meaningful design. Today, the Y-shaped network is gone. What remains is a single line to Birmingham, costing up to £103bn with an uncertain opening date. The mistake was legal. Unlike the 2012 London Olympics — designated as an overriding national interest with a single permitting authority — HS2 was sent through ordinary parliamentary and legal processes. Tens of thousands of stakeholders gained enforceable rights to object. Each had a de facto veto.

This created an inescapable trap. Every concession added unmeasurable cost, making honest forecasting impossible. Into this vacuum stepped consultants and legal advisers. They sold collaborative processes, more governance, more cost controls and forecasting, more flexible contracts. None worked: HS2’s problem was legal and political, not managerial. No system reconciles a fixed budget with an open-ended obligation to satisfy thousands of objectors. Consultants sold solutions to problems they had no power to fix.

And contractors? In a project defined by uncertainty, the only certain outcome was their profitability. Undefined scope turns flexible contracts into open invitations.

We rightly should not silence stakeholders. But without legal reform, a constrained government cannot spend its way to solutions — only to more HS2s and profits for those selling the blindness. The parable ends in a ditch, and we are falling. The question is whether enough of us, seeing clearly, will stop walking.

Nuno Gil
Professor of New Infrastructure Development, Alliance Manchester Business School, Manchester, UK

 

[InTheEastMids]

Letter: HS2 consultants are blindly leading the UK into a ditch https://share.google/E1dkXVzubaRDpaN6o

I think I agree with the thrust of the letter - the £37.5Bn budget must've been set long before the design was mature/frozen enough to warrant the certainty that's been attached to it.

But frankly I would expect a slightly cooler-headed analysis from a university professor, this reads like a bit of a rant. The planning issues and political tinkering with scope have been well described before and I don't think any particularly novel perspective is offered. Then, it's some very lazy "blame the consultants" thinking.

"Consultants sold solutions to problems they had no power to fix." Quick! Somebody needs to call BBC TV Watchdog.

Heidi, a 51 year old woman from Swindon South is a vulnerable Government minister in charge of Multi-billion pound HS2 Ltd. She was mis-sold "consultancy" by a couple of burly men, who - when challenged by TV's Matt Allwright - covered their faces, assaulted the camera crew and sped away in a white Ford Transit. Do you know them? Have you seen them? Please call.

The serious point I'm making is that if consultants were doing this, it's actually reflecting that HS2 Ltd/DfT were not competent clients who understood which things consultants can and can't fix. They are not individuals requiring protection from rogue traders. The very cynical take on Client behaviour is, when realising that something might hit the fan, commissioning a consultant to either validate it or provide a convenient scapegoat in the future. I have sat in meetings where it is extremely apparent that this is what the Client wants.

 

[FMerrymon]

I think I agree with the thrust of the letter - the £37.5Bn budget must've been set long before the design was mature/frozen enough to warrant the certainty that's been attached to it.

37.5bn wasn't ever the budget, though, its an early estimate in 2009 prices from 2011. The certainty attached this figure was from the media reporting of the time. The first budget was in 2013 (50.1bn in 2011 prices) with slightly more work done - thats around 85bn in today's prices. However, we know the hybrid bill process made a few changes and, even then, by 2020, its now said they didnt have a mature enough design - that was what Mark Wild pointed to for the increases in costs since 2020.

The serious point I'm making is that if consultants were doing this, it's actually reflecting that HS2 Ltd/DfT were not competent clients who understood which things consultants can and can't fix.

Agree, and I love the Heidi from Swindon South story . I didnt read the letter as blame the consultants overall though, more that there were systemic issues in delivery.

 

[HSTEd]

Even if battery electric trains struggle to deliver the performance @Technologist proposes, a track based linear synchronous motor (like those proposed for maglevs) certainly can deliver that performance.

 

[Technologist]

Even if battery electric trains struggle to deliver the performance @Technologist proposes, a track based linear synchronous motor (like those proposed for maglevs) certainly can deliver that performance.

I don't see what issues would prevent us having conventional wheeled trains with that level of performance, we are talking relatively tame acceleration compared to a BEV vehicle. We might struggle with battery life which might force us to initially have larger batteries and slightly overweight trains but given the general progress of the area that would be corrected at the first battery change.

I would assume that the intensity of use of the line would mean that we wouldn't have very many issues with traction as the line would be self cleaning in operation. From a safety perspective we would likely use eddy current brakes as the emergency system so we would have a means of slowing down without relying on traction.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

National Audit Office have released a report into the HS2 reset its a 56 page document so can only offer some observations but its largely a regurgitation of what we've already heard at Transport and Public Accounts committees.

https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/high-speed-two-reset.pdf

The first recommendation is

DfT and HS2 Ltd expect to complete the reset in spring 2027, but it is essential that they ensure the programme is fully on a stable footing before the reset is complete. DfT and HS2 Ltd should review how realistic the timetable is in autumn 2026 to complete remaining work and, if necessary, revise the timetable to provide them with the additional time needed to complete the reset.

If HS2 haven't got a grip by Spring 2027 not sure they ever will

Then there is this on rolling stock

When deciding on the HS2 train fleet and how it will integrate with the wider rail network, DfT should ensure that it aligns with the future operation of the rail network as a whole and ensure sufficient seat capacity to maximise overall benefits.

Specifically reinforcing what Chris Gibb was promoting by saying

3.9 HS2 Ltd awarded a contract for trains in 2021. The cancellation of Phase 2 in 2023 means that trains will run on the existing railway north of Birmingham. However, the stations on the existing West Coast Main Line railway are smaller than the HS2 stations that were planned. Therefore, the platforms are too small to accommodate the HS2 trains running with two 200-metre units as was originally planned. If HS2 trains operate as a single 200-metre unit, they would carry fewer passengers than the trains which currently run on the West Coast Main Line. In addition, the new trains will not be able to go as fast as the current Pendolino trains on certain sections of the track. A reduction in the length of the trains, and in turn seat capacity, will impact on the programme’s benefits and the wider rail network.

3.10 HS2 Ltd and DfT are now looking at options for including longer trains in the fleet. They expect to make a final decision on the number and length of units needed by 2028, to coincide with wider DfT decisions on trains for the whole of the West Coast Main Line. They have assessed that agreeing any change in train length by 2028 would allow the supply chain to adjust and deliver trains when they are needed. In the meantime, they are reviewing how this and recent scope changes (for example, removal of automatic train operation), impact the current contract and the next steps they need to take as part of the commercial reset.

Not sure I had seen this reported before but

The reset programme began in January 2025, and HS2 Ltd expects to complete it in spring 2027. HS2 Ltd estimates it will spend £153 million on the reset (in nominal prices), having spent £101 million by the end of March 2026. HS2 Ltd uses additional resources to conduct the reset alongside continued delivery of the programme.

In the grander scheme of HS2 its a small amount but its still £153m that has to come from DfTs budget that cant be spent on something else.

In summary they've made eight recommendations and DfT don't have to agree to them but will usually provide a commentary once they've considered the report.