The Westminster Government will "engage directly" with Holyrood to deliver a high speed rail link between Scotland and London.

Transport Minister Keith Brown and Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure and Capital Investment Alex Neil met Westminster's Transport Secretary Justine Greening and Scottish Secretary Michael Moore at the Scottish Parliament.

The UK Government has already agreed to work on a line from London to Birmingham as a first phase, but concerns have been raised that Scotland will have to wait for detailed consideration.

Ms Greening gave the go-ahead to the first phase of the network from London to Birmingham on January 10. The second phase aims to take the line north to Leeds and Manchester by 2033.

A spokesman for the Scottish Government said Ms Greening had agreed that high speed rail company HS2 should "engage directly" with the Scottish Government on proposals for High Speed Rail ahead of a further meeting between the ministers in the autumn.

Mr Brown said: "I look forward to working with Justine Greening to deliver a plan for High Speed Rail from Scotland to London.

"In particular I welcome the commitment from Justine Greening that the UK Government will engage with the Scottish Government on routes and options for the delivery of High Speed Rail in Scotland with a view to agreeing a timescale for bringing High Speed Rail to Scotland by the end of this Parliament.

"It is essential that we are able to enter discussions with High Speed 2 and it is very helpful that Ms Greening agreed to make that happen.

"The Fast Track Scotland group I formed last year stated unequivocally that the case for this service is strong, but stronger still when Scotland is involved from the beginning and showed the line would result in economic benefits of over £24bn to Scotland.

"Obviously we would like to move faster and proposed the option of work starting in Scotland so we can benefit from better and faster rail connections as soon as possible but today is a step forward and we will continue to keep up the pressure for High Speed Rail in Scotland."

Mr Neil added: "This meeting was extremely productive and allowed us to point out exactly why the rest of the UK needs this line to include Scotland, just as much as we do.

"We have called consistently for a detailed plan of action to be put in place which would see Scotland included and that can now get under way.

"We made clear to Ms Greening and Mr Moore that the only way to see the full potential of the line is to ensure that Scotland is included in planning from the very outset and I am pleased to report that they agreed with this.

"High Speed Rail sits squarely with this Government's two defining policy objectives: to increase the rate of Scotland's economic growth, and to develop a low carbon economy which leads the world in its ambition."

Further talks will be held in the autumn to decide how the scheme should move forward.