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HS2 chairman David Higgins has admitted that he would have asked CH2M to pull out of the race for a key contract on the second phase of the railway 鈥� if it hadn鈥檛 withdrawn itself.

The US consultant was named preferred bidder for the deal for the 拢170m phase two delivery partner contract in February 鈥� beating Bechtel and a team featuring Mace.

But during a transport select committee hearing into the award, it emerged that during the standstill period 鈥� after CH2M was named preferred bidder 鈥� a whistleblower alerted Mace to the news that HS2鈥檚 former chief of staff Chris Reynolds was now working at CH2M.

Higgins (pictured) told this afternoon鈥檚 hearing that Reynolds left HS2 in June last year and joined CH2M in September 鈥� which Mace said raised conflict of interest issues.

Higgins said Reynolds did not work on preparing the procurement documents for the tender but said the HS2 board raised the matter with CH2M and Higgins told MPs: 鈥淯nless something came back satisfactorily we would have disqualified them.鈥�

And transport secretary Chris Grayling said it was 鈥渕ore than likely鈥� the department would have asked CH2M to withdraw.

CH2M withdrew from the contract last month and asked why the firm pulled out, Higgins said: 鈥淢aybe they didn鈥檛 look forward to a legal battle with us 鈥� who knows?鈥�

Higgins, who revealed he will be having another meeting next week with Mark Reynolds, the chief executive of Mace, which has threatened legal action over the issue, said HS2 would be tightening up its procedures as a result and would ask future bidders 鈥渢o give us more of a chance to scrutinise this [conflicts of interest] ourselves鈥�.

Grayling said it wasn鈥檛 realistic for HS2 to 鈥減ore over every document鈥�, looking for possible points of contention and added: 鈥淭he system has worked, showing that a bidder needs to conform to the rules and that there will be consequences for them if they don鈥檛.鈥�

On Tuesday, Bechtel, which came second in the original race, was named preferred supplier for the work. Higgins said its bid was 15% cheaper than Mace鈥檚.

Announcing its withdrawal last month, CH2M said: 鈥淐H2M today provided formal notice to HS2 Ltd that we are withdrawing our interest in the HS2 Phase 2b contract.

鈥淐H2M has demonstrated all appropriate measures taken throughout to ensure the integrity of the procurement process. Notwithstanding these efforts, we have taken the decision to alleviate any further delays to this critical national infrastructure project which could ultimately lead to increasing costs to UK taxpayers, as well as to our firm.鈥�