A Bucks MP has called for the controversial HS2 project to be scrapped amid the news that Carillion - which was awarded a major construction contract - has collapsed. 

Dame Cheryl Gillan, MP for Chesham and Amersham, said plans for the £56 billion line - which will cut through The Chilterns - should be cancelled amid the liquidation of the construction giant Carillion. 

During a statement by the minister for the cabinet office and fellow Bucks MP, David Lidington, in the House of Commons on Monday, Dame Cheryl said she warned against the risks to the taxpayer from the company back in July 2017. 

When HS2 awarded the contract to Carillion last year, she asked that the Secretary of State for Transport confirm that he had “carried out due diligence on those companies, and that the taxpayer is not in reality carrying unacceptable risks on the construction of HS2.”

Speaking yesterday, she said: "On July 17, I brought the Secretary of State for Transport to this House for 10 o’clock at night to answer the questions I raised about HS2 contractors, and the unacceptable risks to the taxpayer that included Carillion. Unfortunately, those words seem to have come true.”

Urging Mr Lidington to reconsider the project, Dame Cheryl requested that, as he was looking into the effects of Carillion’s collapse on those constituencies in which they had contracts to provide other services, “could he also look at the other failures of HS2, and management, and Government, and wouldn’t he, as well as his constituents, as well as my constituents, and maybe, Mr Speaker, some of your constituents, feel that now is the time to cancel this ill-fated, poorly-run project?”

In response, Mr Lidington said he recognised she spoke for many people who lived along the route and shared her concerns, but that the other two firms who had been awarded the contracts alongside Carillion were contractually obliged to complete the construction work with no extra cost to the taxpayer.

Dame Cheryl has now requested a meeting with Nusrat Ghani MP, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State responsible for HS2, to discuss the project.