Former rail chief denies wrongdoing

The former chief executive of HS2 has denied “any allegation of wrongdoing” after being accused of defrauding taxpayers of £1.76 million when unauthorised redundancy payments were made by the rail group.

Simon Kirby failed to act on orders from the Department for Transport for the scheme to be restricted to statutory levels, the House of Commons public accounts committee heard.

HS2 was found it had made total payments of £2.76m in 2016-17.