High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Bill

Debate between Baroness Barker and Lord Framlingham

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th November 2020 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

My Lords, I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe.

[Lord Framlingham (Con) [V]]

Can the Committee hear the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, now?

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

No, we will take the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe.

[Lord Framlingham (Con) [V]]

I am ready to speak.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

We will come to you after the Minister. If you were ready then to make a short speech, I think that would be in order. I call the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

I call the next speaker, Baroness Vere of Norbiton.

[Lord Framlingham (Con) [V]]

May I contribute now?

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

No, Lord Framlingham, you will speak after the Minister, so you will be the next speaker after this one.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham.

[Lord Framlingham (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I hope this time noble Lords can hear me.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

We can.

[Lord Framlingham (Con) [V]]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for her kind remarks. Sadly, I am reluctant to concede that this mad project can go ahead because I know it will not work; it will not do what it was supposed to be designed to do, and it has within it the seeds of its own destruction. At the end of the day, we will have achieved precious little and caused much harm.

I am happy to support Amendment 5, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. When damaging someone’s life and livelihood, the state, in considering compensation, should certainly not be unfair. In my view, it should not even be just fair. I believe that, within sensible limits, it should be generous. I am not a specialist in this field, so I am speaking about a non-specialist subject, but it goes to the heart of the matter. As HS2 has unfolded, the way that some people—whose homes, land and businesses have been taken away from them—have been haggled with has been as worrying as it has been heart-breaking. We are doing enough harm to the countryside, the environment and the economy already. We should not do any more harm to people who, through no fault of their own, are being caught up in this farce.