Industrial Action on the Railways

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Obviously, in the discussions around this dispute, it is important to separate out the workers and the leadership. No disrespect whatever is intended to the members of the union. We believe that those members who are choosing to strike may not be doing the best for their industry as a whole or for their long-term future. We are trying to get that across to them. I say again that it is important for the union to come back to the table and meet to find a resolution.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in responding to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, who asked about the rhetoric in the Statement, the Minister reflected on the rhetoric of trade union leaders as she saw it. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Fox, also asked about this. The Statement speaks slightingly of the “rhetoric” of the union leaders. In my dictionary, rhetoric is defined as

“the exploitation of figures of speech and other compositional techniques.”

Does the Minister think that the rhetoric of the Statement is chosen to pour oil on troubled waters, or add fuel to the flames?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The structure of the Statement is very much to set out the Government’s position and, to be a little bit Cuprinol about it: it does what it says on the tin. It sets out exactly how the Government feel about this, how we see the necessity for reforms and how we would very much like the union to come back to the table. It tries to dispel some of the myths out there around the role of government and sets out how we can reach a resolution.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am grateful for the reminder that I had not commented on that. The reason is that I have not seen the letter so I do not know what is in it and am not able to comment.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, we have had one question about the Government’s structural vision for the future of rail freight. Let us turn to the content of the Statement about the structural vision for passengers. The Statement refers to commuters three years ago having no alternative to taking the train but today having the option of not travelling at all. That rather suggests that trains are competing with Zoom, Teams and so on. It talks about attracting passengers back. There are many advantages to home working in productivity, family life and health and well-being. Should the Government, instead of talking about attracting passengers back, not be talking about the modal shift of attracting drivers out of their cars and on to the rails?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, that question goes a little further than my brief today, but the Government are very clear that we want a cleaner and greener transport system. Yes, we want to attract passengers back to the railways. At the moment, as I think I said in the Statement, numbers are down by one-fifth, but the interesting thing about the number of passengers travelling at the moment is that the shift has changed quite significantly. Far more people are travelling for leisure purposes; it is wonderful that they are choosing to go by train if they are travelling in the UK for leisure reasons. We have to provide the best possible modern railway that we can, which provides value for money for the taxpayer and for the travelling public, and that is what we intend to do.

P&O Ferries

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I do not have that information to hand. However, following our discussions with the operators, I will certainly write to the noble Lord about the package of measures and how they may operate in the future.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, a statement made in the other place said that the Government are continuing to review the contracts which P&O Ferries has with them. Does that include reviewing the contracts with DP World, the owner of P&O Ferries and, specifically, the freeports contracts?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I reassure the noble Baroness that we are reviewing all of our relationships and contracts with both P&O Ferries and DP World.

P&O Ferries

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I can say to my noble friend that we do not believe that there was consultation with the unions, which is one of the big problems here. We have asked for urgent information as to how many conversations there have been. It is our impression, at this current time, that there have not been any conversations. If there were none, that may well be unlawful. That would be up to the employees to challenge via a tribunal. It will also depend on where the jurisdiction for the contract of employment actually lands. My noble friend is quite right that we need to dig into this in an urgent way to ensure that unions are not locked out of these circumstances in the future.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Minister, in responding to Front Bench questions, rightly said that this action will have a devastating impact on the reputations of P&O Ferries and DP World. The Minister further said that any company worth their salt “would not behave in this way”. The Minister said that the relationship between the Government and DP World has now changed. With that in mind, building on the questions of the noble Lord, Lord Fox, given the fact that freeports are by definition places of, if not lawlessness, certainly reduced legal protection for workers in terms of taxation and so on, how can the Government leave freeports with that kind of structure in the hands of a company which, in the Minister’s own words, has a devastated reputation?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am not entirely sure I agree with the noble Baroness that freeports are areas of lawlessness. The point that I am trying to get across is that we are not sure that laws have been broken. Do I feel that, ethically, things have been done that should not have been done? Absolutely. But we do not know that laws have been broken. When it comes to the situation concerning freeports, which the Government wholly support, we are working urgently to establish the facts of what happened. There is a lot of speculation and comment in the media; we need to establish the facts and whether laws have been broken. We will then consider how this might affect any involvement of DP World in British freeports.

Merchant Shipping (Cargo Ship) (Bilge Alarm) Regulations 2021

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for securing this debate, which is, at the level of detail, about a specific and very disturbing case. As the noble Lord outlined, there was a known, clear, evident solution to a dangerous safety risk, one that the crew of the “Abigail H” escaped without serious injury and risk of deaths only through the luck of a vessel rolling one way rather than another. It has taken 11 years to implement. In the meantime, we have subsequently seen nine similar incidents, while 425 similar ships on the UK ship register remain at risk.

I support this regret Motion while noting the conclusion of our Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, but it is a matter of concern that the Department for Transport has failed to follow up promptly Marine Accident Investigation Branch recommendations.

I note also that the subsequent sinking of “Abigail H” led to the release of 100 litres of lubricating and diesel oil into the marine environment—our already pollution-choked, much-damaged marine environment. It is hard to believe that, had this been a safety issue with cargo planes or with HGVs, we would not have seen far faster action, or certainly a greater outcry until action was taken. This raises a far broader issue than bilge alarms, as crucial as they are to hundreds of vessels. It raises the whole issue of safety—human and environmental—in the marine environment.

Last week, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, asked an Oral Question on human rights at sea. Human rights are supposed to be universal but it is only now that human rights at sea campaigners are seeking effectively to secure those rights because they are not in place. Although there have been some improvements regarding fishing, it is acknowledged as being one of the most dangerous jobs on these islands. The Fishing Industry Safety Group has a commendable vision of zero deaths but given that there have been 71 deaths in the past decade, we are a long way from that.

I note that working on cruise ships in the pre-Covid age—ships that regularly polluted our ports and caused enormous environmental damage—was notoriously exploitative and unsafe for the crew. Covid has only helped to expose the conditions faced by so many of those working on cargo vessels, the crucial foundation of so much of our lives in our import-based society: safety is terrible, pay is low and flags of convenience make it a wild west with no sheriff in sight.

What is going on? Why do we have that lack of knowledge? Certainly now, few people in the UK go to sea, are employed in maritime jobs or know someone who is. According to the latest figures that I have found, there are about 220,000 such jobs in the UK. That is a change from the past when, for good or ill, many Britons went to sea or came into contact with seafarers from all around the world who went to sea in their service.

However, it is hard not to think that this is not a question of “out of sight, out of mind” but deliberate, careful ignorance. We bear a responsibility for what happens in the vessels that sail from or arrive at our shores, whichever flag of convenience they fly—certainly if they fly our own. Their environmental impacts, too, are our responsibility. In your Lordships’ House, when we next debate trade, I invite noble Lords to consider that issue and think about the underpaid, overworked seafarer putting their life in danger to bring us the latest must-have toy or fashion item to be worn casually and discarded. They should think about the climate impact of the fuel that brings them, the damage done when containers fall from vessels, as they regularly do, or when rust-bucket ships break up and sink, spilling their cargos into oceans, to drift and endanger animal life, and sometimes human life, as they do.

We cannot say that that is a cost over the horizon. Overall, it is a real and present danger, which the “Abigail H” highlights our current failure to attend to.

Human Rights at Sea

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord that the impact of Covid on seafarers has been critical in some circumstances. We take the welfare of seafarers extremely seriously. The UK was one of the first countries—if not the first—to recognise and declare seafarers as key workers during the pandemic. Once we had done that, we brought together more than a dozen nations for a ministerial summit in July 2020. We managed to galvanise people into action. This ultimately led to the declaration in the UN General Assembly later in the year to call on all states to take action to protect the welfare of seafarers in the pandemic.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in her answer to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, the Minister referred to the Geneva declaration on human rights at sea, with which she is obviously familiar. The current draft says:

“There is a profound need for the concept of ‘Human Rights at Sea’ to be accepted globally. It is primarily States that have responsibility for enforcing human rights standards at sea.”


Does the Minister agree with those two statements?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I can certainly agree that states predominantly have the responsibility for enforcing and making sure that human rights at sea are indeed followed. Of course, the Government share the concern about human rights abuses at sea. We work incredibly hard with our international partners through the UN organisations responsible for those human rights and with the IMO and the ILO—the International Labour Organization—which are able to set international law that applies to seafarers.

Aviation and Tourism: Cancellations

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 5th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The issue around force majeure and contracts is complicated. I am sure my noble friend will appreciate that I cannot give firm advice, because in these cases, each contract is likely to be slightly different. In the case that this is happening to a consumer, I suggest that that consumer gets their own independent legal advice to fully understand the terms of the contract. It is also the case that some consumers who use a credit card will be able to make a claim with their provider. They might want to check with them as well.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

If the Government are considering the bailout of transport operators, will they make it conditional upon the fair legal treatment of customers, particularly regarding refunds, as well as on the payment of tax, decent treatment of workers and environmental impact, perhaps along the lines of the New Economics Foundation’s fair bailout decision tree?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The provisions that have already been put in place and announced by the Chancellor are available across the economy. They therefore do not have the sorts of conditions that the noble Baroness outlines. However, the Government are always open to speaking to any company that has exhausted all other forms of support and taken all the actions necessary. In those cases, we will make sure that appropriate conditions are put in place to make sure that the company behaves exactly as we would intend it to.

HS2

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the current options for (1) the route, (2) the speed, and (3) the station locations of HS2.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank everyone who has put their name down to speak in this debate and everyone who has rearranged their schedule to be here at this surprisingly early hour.

The request for this debate was lodged several months ago, when the Government were reviewing their entire plan for HS2. In the meantime, of course, they have announced their intention to go ahead. Subsequently, plans have been announced by the broadcaster and campaigner, Chris Packham, to seek a judicial review of the decision in the light of the climate and wildlife impacts of the plan. That came after the High Court ruled that the Government’s decision to go ahead with the proposed Heathrow third runway had failed to take into account commitments they had made under the Paris Agreement on climate change. The Government have said they will not appeal that decision. Legal commentators have said that other challenges may well be launched to HS2, and this comes as North Somerset Council made the historic decision, after a great deal of work by campaigners, not to allow the expansion of Bristol Airport on the basis of the climate emergency.

I would not presume to offer a detailed legal commentary in your Lordships’ House, with our many distinguished legal experts. However, you do not have to be an expert to see that the legal ground has shifted as the physical climate and the state of the natural world have grossly deteriorated. We are in a climate emergency, and plans made a decade ago on highly dubious grounds then are clearly outdated and quite possibly illegal. In this age of clear and understood climate emergency—which is acknowledged by the Government and Parliament—to rely on a phase 1 environmental statement completed in 2013 is farcical. That was before the Paris Agreement was even concluded, the agreement which this Government have signed up to and which they have taken on the great responsibility of delivering at COP 26.

That a court has ruled out the Heathrow third runway on the grounds of insufficient environmental consideration, but the Government are be ploughing ahead with HS2—celebrated by the administration of Birmingham Airport as a great boost to its business—cannot be squared up. As Extinction Rebellion has said, HS2 is “an aviation shuttle service”. The climate emergency is not the only pressing critical issue; we are also in a nature crisis. The UK is one of the most nature-deprived countries in the world, a fact that has led civil society groups representing some 10 million Britons, from the National Trust to Buglife, and from the RSPB to the Woodland Trust, to demand that the current HS2 plans do not go ahead.

My understanding is that in the legal case the Government claim that the decision they made on 11 February to go ahead with HS2 is merely a political one, but the atmosphere does not respond to political arguments or reduce its temperature as a result of rhetoric. The ancient trees, birds, wetland plants and mammals on the HS2 route will not see their lives saved and their environments protected by government words. The bulldozers and the chainsaws, as well as the intended notice to proceed, which we expect to see within weeks, loom over them unless the court comes to their rescue as it came to the rescue of the climate regarding Heathrow.

There are two potential approaches to the way forward from here, and I expect this debate to cover both. The first, and definitely my and the Green Party’s preferred option, is to stop the whole project and stop throwing good money after bad. Yes, £8 billion has already been spent on HS2, but that is dwarfed by the potential £106 billion—and counting—cost of going ahead. That money is not only threatening to produce a white elephant; it has an opportunity cost. It is money that is not being spent on walking and cycling facilities, local buses and regional trains that would slash our carbon emissions, helping us to meet our legally binding agreements under COP, cause vastly less damage to biodiversity and bioabundance and help local economies, rather than boost the Great Wen of London further. The Government say that HS2 is part of the much-vaunted levelling up for the north and the Midlands, but with 40% of the economic benefit going to London, that does not add up. HS2 is pumping even more money, resources and people into a capital that is already suffering from the economic weakness of its hinterland.

There is also an opportunity cost in skills, machinery and worker capacity. We know that we have a massive skills shortage in the UK. The construction industry is gravely concerned about the impact of Brexit on its labour supply and about the ageing of its workforce. Workers are a valuable, scarce resource. They should be working for the best benefit of the people of the UK and its desperately damaged natural world.

There is also the climate impact, of course. According to HS2’s own forecasts, even over 120 years, its overall construction and operation will cause carbon emissions of 1.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. In the next crucial 10 years, before it even gets to Birmingham, the impact will be heavy and damaging. In a period when we need to slash our emissions, we will instead create massive quantities of them, with all that concrete, all that steel and all those bulldozers. So, my number one question to the Government today is will they stop HS2, as 10 million members of NGOs are asking them to do?

Alternatively, and because this is a debate, a secondary way of proceeding is to reduce the damage caused by the initial and second stages. Indeed, we might reverse the order altogether. Sometimes, and I understand this entirely, campaigners feel that we need to be absolutist—to say that we are only interested in stopping something dreadful—but I see nothing wrong with trying to stop something and understanding that any political or legal effort might fail and working at the same time to limit or reduce the damage.

Indeed, many years ago, when I lived in Somers Town in Camden, I had talks with HS2 about reducing the dreadful impact on residents of social housing there. Although I claim no personal credit, because I am sure that many others were making the same representations, plans to “double decant” residents—to make them move twice—were changed. That is why I am asking in this debate that potential changes to the route, the speed and the station locations should be considered. I hope that those who are to speak later will pick up on these points and amplify in more time than I have available.

I ask the Government to consider the strong and clear position of the Wildlife Trust. It is concerned about wildlife so it does not have a particular position on HS2 as an overall project. Its concern has always been the impact of the current design on wildlife. In response to the Government’s 11 February announcement, the trust pleaded that it is more critical than ever for the whole HS2 project to be redesigned before it creates a scar that will never heal. I should say to noble Lords that that comes not from me, but from the Wildlife Trust.

The heart of this problem is speed that demands a straight line that will affect in total some 350 wildlife sites: nature reserves, ancient forests and woodlands which are home to some of the UK’s rarest species, but which are also home to huge numbers of starlings and sparrows, frogs and toads. These animals may not be rare, but we have seen their numbers collapse over recent decades. We need to preserve them all, and we cannot afford this destruction.

Then of course there is the human disruption. Life in too many communities has already been blighted by the prospect of HS2, and that blight is threatening to become permanent, even though it could be changed. HS2 has argued that speed is crucial, but that argument, based on the curious assumption that businesspeople do not work on trains, fell apart. HS2 shifted its argument to one about capacity. Capacity does not need super high speeds far exceeding those of continental trains which travel far greater distances; speed that consumes massive amounts of energy. Less speed means more chance to avoid ploughing through ancient, irreparable woodlands and wetlands and communities. On the idea that the damage can be offset by diversity offsetting, an ancient woodland has taken hundreds of years to create, and sticking in a few saplings does not replace it. There is also the question of the parkway stations, to which we all know it is highly likely that passengers will drive.

At its conference in Cardiff in February 2011, the Green Party decided to oppose HS2, and I sometimes I that I have talked about little else since, but the arguments essentially have not changed, it is just that the nature crisis and the climate emergency have become far more pressing. I shall conclude with the words of transport and sustainability expert, Professor John Whitelegg, who said in 2011:

“Everyone knows the Greens are passionately committed to social justice and to the environment. The current HS2 proposals would serve neither.”


I ask noble Lords today to consider that on many issues, from the climate emergency to air pollution, and borrowing to invest to agro-ecology, the Green Party has led and others have followed. Please join us in opposing HS2, stopping HS2 or, at the very least, significantly changing the plan.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, the House may be pleased to know that the time limit for this debate has been extended to 90 minutes. The limit for Back-Bench speeches has increased to 10 minutes, but no more.

Smart Motorways

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for this debate and apologise for missing the first few seconds of her very clear introduction. I join the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax, in questioning the terminology of “smart” motorways and intend to refer to them as “all-lane running” motorways instead.

I declare my personal interest in road safety and the reason for it. When I was 23, I was in a car crash in which my mother was killed. I know what it is like to go through this experience. I know what the impact is like on families, emergency services workers and everyone who sees and is around that experience. For that reason I am passionate about Vision Zero, a policy which aims for no fatalities or serious injuries on roads and which was first adopted by the Swedish Parliament in 1997. It has since been adopted by a number of US states, where between 1997 and 2014 they had a 25% faster fall in road fatalities than those that had not adopted it. The Mayor of London has also adopted this policy, with a target date of 2041 for London. Will the Government consider taking this approach? All-lane running motorways are absolutely out of line with that approach. Indeed, they take us in utterly the wrong, opposite direction. It is acknowledged that, to achieve Vision Zero, a key aspect is road design. As many noble Lords have set out before me, the clear evidence is that this road design is disastrous and dangerous.

There is another reason why I wanted to speak in this debate. Near my home city of Sheffield, there is a 16-mile stretch of the M1 where five people have died in the last 10 months. One of those was Jason Mercer, who was killed by an HGV after he had had a minor incident with a driver called Alexandru Murgeanu. They were both killed when they stopped to exchange details by the side of the road on this all-lane running motorway. I pay tribute to his widow Claire, who has been at the absolute forefront of campaigning on this issue and continues to be. But Claire should not be in the position that she is in now, because, as we have heard from previous noble Lords, there are growing calls for the Government to take action to reverse this disastrous policy. We need to end this danger now.

I will very briefly address an issue beyond road safety: the innately flawed approach that is behind this. It is well known that the term “induced demand” is used in traffic engineering: if you build more roads, you create more traffic. Opening up the hard shoulder is equivalent to building more roads. As the noble Lord said about 12-lane highways, they just fill up. There is a way to increase the capacity of our motorways, and that it is to reduce speed limits. With reduced stopping distances, we could actually fit more cars onto the road. However, it probably will not surprise noble Lords that, as a Green Party Peer, I am not looking to increase the amount of traffic on our roads. We focus on road safety in terms of crashes, but road safety has many other aspects as well, such as air pollution. The area of Sheffield to which I was referring—a very poor area—suffers very badly from air pollution. The last thing it needs on its roads is more cars and the accompanying pollution.

Finally, I will pick up a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, about education. As noble Lords will be aware, I am certainly a very large user of social media, but the first time that I saw any safety information from the Government about the whole issue of all-lane running motorways was when I opened the House of Lords briefing for today’s debate. I have not seen anything anywhere else. I am perhaps representative of people rather younger than myself, but surely we should ensure that we reach young drivers through social media campaigns and education about what is happening on our roads.

High Speed 2 (Economic Affairs Committee Report)

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I am indebted to the noble Lord who drew attention to the Green Party’s position on HS2. I am sorry that he is not now in his place and will be reading my comments later. He said that my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb had made that position clear to your Lordships’ House. The Green Party has held that position since the start of this debate. I ask anyone who wants to try to use environmental arguments about HS2 to look at our position and our very loud and clear statement that HS2 is no solution to the climate emergency or our nature crisis.

I always aim to be positive so I want to speak in favour of a lovely, exciting rail project going ahead right now. Unfortunately it is in Sweden, but it has a potential impact on all your Lordships’ travel: the return of night trains, which, as has been highlighted, means you will be able to get from Copenhagen in the middle of the evening to London for lunch by train. That is truly replacing flights with rail travel. If we are talking about using all the capacity of our existing lines, night trains are one way in which we potentially have more capacity. Indeed, when the Eurostar started the plan was to have sleeper trains to the continent, and that is something that I would very much like to see revived.

Perhaps I should have begun by declaring an interest as a resident of Sheffield and as former Green Party leader. I have not kept count of the number of train miles that I have completed over the last seven or eight years, and I am glad I have not. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, referred to the level of expertise in this House, and I think I can claim expertise as a truly veteran long-time train traveller. I can also tell any noble Lords who wish to know exactly where the Pacers always leak when it is raining.

The Green Party came out in opposition to HS2 at the 2011 spring conference. I remember that debate. It was a long and heated one because, understandably, people asked: “The Green Party opposing trains—how can that be?” There has been lots of discussion in your Lordships’ House about economic arguments but there is an argument that I have not heard yet. One of the key economic and social arguments that we focused on back in 2011 was that HS2 would focus people, money and resources even more on London than is already the case. That is the last thing that this country needs, and indeed that London needs. I know the Mayor of London has expressed his support for HS2, and many politicians feel the need to keep arguing for growth. That is an argument that we might perhaps have another time in your Lordships’ House, but what London needs for itself is a healthy hinterland—a healthy north—and of course the north needs a healthy economy and society. London is a primate city; everything is focused here, and that causes massive damage to everyone.

The Green Party has called HS2 “an utter waste”. We need massive spending on transport but, as many noble Lords have already said, on other rail routes, particularly those that run east-west. Also, although I have not heard every speech in this debate but I have heard nearly all of them, I have yet to hear the word “buses” used. I apologise if it has been said and I did not hear it. When it comes to how most people get around, get to work, see their relatives and friends and combat loneliness—all these issues that we are concerned about—buses are crucial, as are walking and cycling. That is where the funding and spending need to go.

I have talked about my personal expertise. I refer to the TransPennine so-called Express—I think some of your Lordships will be well aware of that—and for the need for all this to be integrated and fitted together. When I catch trains in many parts of the continent, every carriage has an indicator board telling you the next station and giving you real-time information about what bus connections you can make. It even sometimes tells you about where you can hire a bike and ways in which you can have an integrated journey. That is the kind of thing that we should spend money on.

There has been some discussion that this is not either/or. I refer your Lordships to a lot of the discussion we have had about the difficulty of our capacity in managing projects—our capacity to have the labour, skills and knowledge. We have problems with planning capacity. These issues may come up in another debate in your Lordships’ House on the immigration Bill, when that arrives. We undoubtedly have huge problems, so saying that we can build more and more projects is a question of the availability of not just money but skills.

I said that this is not an answer to the nature crisis. I feel like a lot of these arguments have been made already, very notably by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and the noble Lord, Lord Randall. This HS2 plan means huge damage for the environment. One of the arguments put forward by HS2 and its proponents is that they will do biodiversity offsetting. In the earlier debate on fisheries, we discussed how incredibly nature-depleted Britain is as a country. We have lost so much. As the noble Baroness said, we have only 2% of our ancient woodlands left. We simply cannot afford to lose more. The idea that you can plant some trees to replace or offset the loss of ancient woodland simply does not stack up.

On the arguments people make suggesting that HS2 will help the climate emergency, several noble Lords have pointed out that it will not replace flights. Actually, what we hear from regional airports along the route is how much of a boost it will be and how much it will increase their capacity and flights. The fact that, having declared a climate emergency, we are still talking in any way about airport expansion really does not add up. HS2 adds to and assists airport expansion. As I said before, I have not heard every single contribution but I have heard most of them, and I have noticed that no one has mentioned that we might even get to Edinburgh and Glasgow one day with HS2. That is where the argument started; that is how it was going to replace flights. I refer your Lordships to the issue of timing. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change told us that we have 10 years to turn things around. In 10 years, we might get to Birmingham with HS2. That is nothing like the timeframe we need.

I will touch on the environmental damage being done. When I started having arguments about HS2, people said that it was designed for speed. Now, we hear that it is designed for capacity. If we went for simply capacity, we would not have the environmental destruction. That is something that the committee report covers.

I am being told to wrap up, but I will make one final point, because a lot of noble Lords have referred to the way we make decisions and deliver infrastructure in the UK. I sometimes say that if you invite me to talk about algae, I will bring up democracy, so I will bring up the issue of the structure of our governance now. First past the post politics produces really bad decision-making. It produces decision-making aimed at winning seats in particular places. We are indebted to a Member of this House who is not here today: your Lordships might like to look up the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, telling the FT in 2013 about the political reasons why this decision was made.

I finish with a simple statement: do not go for greenwash, which is what the arguments for HS2 are. Let us choose the local and regional, cross-country, non-London-focused transport improvements that we need.