High Speed 2 (Ancient Woodlands)

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and Michael Fabricant

Wednesday 3rd July 2013 Westminster Hall

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Osborne. I apologise for my terrible cold, which is affecting my delivery somewhat.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) on securing this important debate and for posing some important questions on behalf of his constituents and others who are concerned about our natural environment. The debate will be followed closely in communities along the proposed route and, speaking as a Greenwood myself, I have a natural sympathy for a number of the points he made. The debate is timely, because there are only eight days left before consultation on the phase 1 draft environmental statement closes. We have heard from right hon. and hon. Members about the impact on ancient woodlands. Before addressing such valid concerns, however, I will say a few words about the wider environmental significance of the new north-south line.

A new line can help the UK to meet its 2050 carbon reduction targets under the Climate Change Act 2008 by attracting new passengers to the railways and by providing the additional capacity that freight and passenger services need. The rail freight sector has enjoyed 10 years of growth, and any Government that is serious about tackling carbon emissions would want to see that success continue. Without additional capacity, however, the risk is that freight operators will have to be turned away in future. Greengauge 21 looked at the environmental impact of the HS2 project last year, in a report commissioned by the Campaign to Protect Rural England, the Campaign for Better Transport and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. That report makes it clear that the environmental benefits of the new line have a close relationship with other policy areas.

At the moment, rail journeys consume much less carbon than equivalent car journeys. That gap was expected to close as more electric cars entered the market. I remind Government Members that the full coalition agreement included a commitment to

“a national recharging network for electric and plug in vehicles”.

In reality, those plans have been drastically cut back. It may make uncomfortable listening for some Government Members, but the Government’s failure to deliver a national recharging network strengthens the environmental case for a new rail line.

The report also highlights the need for a full network as the carbon reduction benefits are multiplied fourfold when the second phase to Manchester and Leeds is factored in. The Government should and could have provided that certainty by introducing a single hybrid Bill to cover the entire route, allowing construction to start at both ends of the line. We need a clear timetable for decarbonisation of the electricity market, and that was one of the report’s recommendations. Labour has made a commitment to decarbonise the sector by 2030 before phase 2 of the new line is completed.

Network Rail has embarked on a major programme of electrification on our existing rail network, as well as on the new high-speed line. We need an ambitious timetable for decarbonisation to reduce the impact of that additional demand. There are steps that the Government could take now to maximise the environmental benefits of the new north-south rail line, However, those wider gains will not cancel out the loss of individual habitats. Loss in some areas may be unavoidable, but damage should take place only when all reasonable alternatives have been exhausted. The test is whether every reasonable step has been taken to mitigate environmental damage.

Hon. Members and communities along the line have raised serious concerns about the way in which HS2 Ltd has handled consultation up to this point. It is no secret that many of the early community forum meetings in particular were badly organised, with underprepared staff giving incorrect or conflicting information to the public. As the Chilterns Conservation Board said at the time, the meetings were characterised by

“a lack of clarity on what the Community Forums will actually cover. Many of the HS2 Ltd staff…were…quite new in post and could not confirm how the meetings should work or even if they would be attending future ones.”

The Minister must ensure that when the consultation on the final environmental statement begins—I would welcome a date for that—the process is transparent and accessible, and that enough time is provided for proper responses fully involving the affected communities. More than a year on, there are still serious questions about the route, including whether the tunnel under the Chilterns will be extended, with only eight days left for the draft environmental statement consultation.

The situation was not helped when misleading statements were made early last year. In a letter to the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), the then Secretary of State for Transport, the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening), suggested that woodland could be transplanted to an adjacent site, a process known as translocation. We must be clear that ancient woodland cannot be moved, but some animal species and soil can be moved or translocated, although the consequences of moving soil from ancient woodland are, sadly, poorly understood. Any trees that are moved will be coppiced, radically altering their appearance and risking the death of individual trees during the moving process. Although some constituent parts of the woodland may be salvaged, the original biodiversity cannot be recreated and is lost for ever. Natural England has said that translocation might, if carried out as a last resort when loss of the original habitat is completely unavoidable, form part of a package of compensation measures. In other words, translocation may have a part to play, but we must be honest about its limitations.

The onus should be on route design and mitigation measures to avoid disrupting ancient woodland in the first place. Some measures have been introduced to reduce the line’s impact, such as additional tunnelling, but we would like clearer information about the cost, especially now that the overall cost of the project has increased, largely because of new tunnels in west London, Birmingham and the east midlands.

[Michael Fabricant]

Will the hon. Lady clarify whether the official Opposition now support the route, more or less, that we proposed when in Opposition, which would follow an existing transport corridor, thus minimising environmental damage, and not the Adonis route that we have adopted?

[Lilian Greenwood]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He is right to point out that we considered alternative routes and argued that they should be considered by the new Government. We want the project to proceed, but there are significant concerns about the Government’s timetable, particularly the hybrid Bill. The Government are in a position to make decisions and we want the project to proceed, but that does not mean that we should not look carefully at the option for mitigation and compensation to protect the natural habitat.

Will the Minister tell us whether he is satisfied with the way in which alterations to the proposed route have been made so far, whether he expects further changes, including additional tunnelling, to avoid ancient woodland, and whether he has given any thought to how ancient woodland in particular will be approached during the hybrid Bill’s petitioning process? When the Bill goes into Committee, the Government will be able to set limits of deviation restricting the extent to which alterations may be made during that process. We ask for careful thought to be given to how ancient woodland might be affected by those limits. The commitment to planting new trees is welcome, provided they form a sensitive and effective sound barrier, but they cannot replace ancient woodland which is, by definition, irreplaceable.

I am pleased that the hon. Member for Lichfield agrees that a north-south rail line is right in principle. As the House debated last week, there is an impending capacity crunch for our railways, especially on the west coast main line which will be full by 2024.