High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill: Instruction (No. 3)

Debate between Greg Knight and Robert Goodwill

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

I would extend that praise to the other members of the Committee, who have dealt very well with people who can be nervous in that situation. I should also like to take this opportunity to praise the work done by my officials at HS2, who have gone the extra mile to address some of the petition issues before they even needed to reach the Committee.

As intended, the process has led to many sensible changes to the scheme in order to address the needs and concerns of petitioners. Some of the changes have been agreed by HS2 Ltd dealing directly with petitioners, and some were recommended in the Select Committee’s recent interim report, to which the Government responded on 4 June. Many changes can be accommodated using existing powers, but some require the powers in the Bill to be extended—for example, when a change requires the use of land that is not included in the Bill. In such circumstances, an additional provision is required. This is effectively a mini-hybrid Bill, with its own environmental statement and petitioning period for those “directly and specially affected” by the changes.

The motion relates to an additional provision that, subject to it being passed, the Government intend to deposit on 13 July. The additional provision contains 125 changes, along the line of route beyond Camden, that have resulted from the petitioning process and from HS2 Ltd’s continued development of the design of the railway. The changes are mostly of a minor nature. They include the realignment of access routes and the diversion of footpaths following discussions with affected landowners, or the relocation of areas of ecological mitigation to reduce the impacts on farming operations. I am tempted to say that this is a tidying-up process, but I recall that that was how some described the Lisbon treaty.

There are, however, proposals for three significant changes. As already announced, we propose to realign the route in the Lichfield area so that it runs in a cutting rather than on an embankment, as well as moving the route away from the Trent and Mersey canal. This will enable the line to go under the A38, the South Staffordshire railway and the west coast main line, which will significantly reduce the visual impact of the railway in the area. I hope the House will welcome this example of the promoter seeking to take on board petitioners’ concerns and integrate them into the HS2 project where we are able to do so. I am particularly pleased that, in this case, the solution will be less expensive to deliver.

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

Will the Minister tell the House what effect those route changes will have on the proposed journey times?

[Mr Goodwill]

They will have no effect at all on the journey times. This is about delivering the project by and large as planned. HS2 is more about capacity than it is about journey times. This is about addressing the real capacity issues that we have on our rail network, particularly between Birmingham and London.

The most significant other change concerns the Heathrow Express depot. It is currently located at Old Oak Common, but it needs to be relocated in order to construct the new Old Oak Common station. It was originally intended to be moved to another site nearby, but more detailed operational work undertaken by Network Rail since the Bill’s deposit has revealed that that site would not work operationally. We therefore propose to relocate the depot to a site in Langley, near Slough.