High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill

Debate between Lord Framlingham and Lord Carrington

Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report stage
Monday 30th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Framlingham (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. I too watched “Countryfile” yesterday evening; in these gloomy days I found it really quite inspiring. I wish to speak in support of Amendments 5, 6 and 7. Although much has been said already—the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, have comprehensively dealt with the issue—perhaps something I say may be of interest.

During our discussions in Committee, I was accused by one noble Lord of making a Second Reading speech. I cannot possibly agree. I contend that if a project is as fundamentally flawed as HS2, this flows over and contaminates every aspect of the Bill. It is impossible to escape the basic facts. If you are unwise enough to try to build a house on shifting sand, every time you discuss the doors or windows, you will be forced back into recognising that you have made a dreadful mistake from which there is no escape.

These proposed new clauses, which I support, are about damage limitation. The effect of HS2 on our natural environment will be, and is already, catastrophic. To insist, as Amendment 5 does, on a “10% biodiversity net gain”, rather than the very unambitious “no net loss”, seems the least we can do. The Government insist on these standards for other people and ought to insist on them for HS2, particularly as the damage is being inflicted by the Government and intentionally.

Amendment 6 deals with ancient woodland. I declare a long-standing and non-pecuniary interest in the Arboricultural Association, the foremost organisation in the country in the planting and care of our urban trees. I was for some years its president and am now an honorary fellow. The amendment is about doing all we can to protect and preserve our ancient woodlands. Let no one pretend that HS2 is not doing irreparable damage. The woodlands, with all the benefits and joy they bring, will never be replaced. It is futile to suggest it. It is even more ridiculous, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has just pointed out, to suggest that they can be moved, as anyone with any understanding of trees, soils and their interaction can testify. Protection, not replacement, is the key.

I come back to the point I made earlier about the relationship between the Second Reading of a Bill and its later stages. Whoever dreamed up HS2 either did not care or did not understand the effect of driving a high-speed train through the heart of England. If you want to travel at the kind of speeds originally used to sell the project, you must travel in a straight line. You cannot have bends or curves, for obvious reasons, so you draw a straight line from London to Birmingham, or Birmingham to Crewe, and if anything happens to get in the way—towns, villages, farms, businesses, people’s homes or ancient woodland—I am afraid that is just too bad. A massive amount of damage is inevitable and, one would have thought, foreseeable. This is not how you build roads and railways in a relatively small country. It is possible to travel at reasonably high speeds on railways which have been constructed, as far as reasonably possible, to avoid doing the kind of damage that I feel has been inevitable from this scheme’s conception.

The irony of all this, as I understand it, is that, for a variety of reasons, the originally dreamt-up speeds are not going to be possible. Indeed, the accent has now shifted, and the argument has moved to other things, so time may show that our ancient woodlands have been sacrificed in vain, if we are no longer going at the speeds we projected. Some 108 of our ancient woodlands have already been affected and, nationally, only 2.4% of the original woodlands remain. We simply must do all we can to protect them. When the Minister comes to wind up, I would be grateful if she could tell us—if she can—what the top and average speeds of HS2 are now projected to be.

The new clause proposed in Amendment 7, in its excellent brevity, encapsulates the two most important issues facing the future of trees in the United Kingdom today. Basically we need, first, to keep diseased trees out and, secondly, to grow more of the trees we need. The two propositions are entirely complementary. If, through the problems created by HS2, we can make progress on these two issues, some good will have come out of the difficulties. For many years, I have been advocating tighter restrictions on imported trees and eventually, perhaps, a total ban. Certainly, we need an immediate ban on certain species, such as oak. We are an island and have phytosanitary advantages that brings; we cannot afford to take the risk of more admission of serious diseases.

We have suffered from Dutch elm disease and ash dieback, both of which are imported diseases. The first came from Canada and has almost completely wiped out our precious elm population. How many ash trees will be left when dieback has run its course remains to be seen. The latest fiasco has been the oak processionary moth, which does such damage to our oak trees. It had been present in this country for some time and was presumably imported, but it remained confined to London and the Home Counties. Recently, however, we allowed it in on a consignment of oak trees, and, saving the moth the inconvenience of spreading itself, we distributed it all over the country. There have been excuses aplenty but not the fierce action the situation demands.

We have Xylella fastidiosa, capable of infecting over 300 different plant species, and plane wilt, capable of wreaking havoc on all London planes—both diseases are in Europe, just waiting for the chance to invade. At the moment, our stance on imported trees is awareness and reaction. It should be much more aggressively defensive. As a country, we are becoming more tree-conscious, and mass tree-planting schemes are under way. Without adequate biosecurity, all that effort could be for nothing.

The gap in the market created by tighter import restrictions must be filled by our own nurseries. Urgent consultation should take place, involving government, tree nurseries, landscapers, contractors and local authorities to plan how this can be done and provide the long-term financial commitment badly needed by growers, the lack of which is the reason for so much of our imports. The Woodland Trust has already taken the lead on this issue and will plant only home-grown native trees. It is to be congratulated, and I agree with it when it says that it makes sense to insist that HS2 is required to source all its trees, shrubs and seeds from the UK. It says, and I agree, that to argue otherwise is to deny the seriousness of the situation we are facing.

If both the proposals made in the new clause in Amendment 7 can be put into action, this will be a huge step forward for our trees, and I believe that any noble Lord who really cares for our trees must support it.

[Lord Carrington (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a landowner with ancient woodlands in the Chilterns. That is set out in the register. I am also directly affected by HS2 south of Birmingham.

I would like to speak against Amendment 7 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, as it fails to take into account one of the three major threats to our woodland—that of climate change, the others being, of course, pests and diseases. It would be short-sighted and damaging to restrict in this manner the plants and trees that are planted under the provisions of the Bill. It also flies against the science and recommendations of the Forestry Commission, set out comprehensively in its report of November 2019 entitled Managing England’s Woodlands in a Climate Emergency, and the UK forestry standard which sets out the Government’s approach to sustainable forestry management with regard to climate change. I should mention here that the Forestry Commission is not just concerned with commercial woodland; it is concerned with all sorts of woodland.

The ancient woodlands of England cannot be set in aspic as they are as affected by climate change as any other type of woodland. We therefore need to ensure that a wood’s genetic viability is enhanced by including not only native species with local provenance but others which are successfully grown from seeds sourced from the Forestry Commission’s 2 to 5 degrees south rule. Avoiding pests and diseases is obviously paramount, so such trees should be grown from carefully selected imported seeds from selected stands, but in UK nurseries. Amendment 7 would be a backward and unhelpful move in the important development and expansion of UK nurseries, leaving aside potential climate change consequences to HS2 woodland.

Amendment 11 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, achieves much more than Amendment 7 in the sourcing of trees from UK growers, but unnecessarily seems to stop the importation of seed to enable the growing in the UK of trees to achieve the genetic provenance that is so necessary and comes from the areas 2 to 5 degrees south, which is the clear recommendation of the UK forestry standard and the Forestry Commission, which says that:

“Naturalised tree species should be considered to increase species diversity where appropriate”.


That may be necessarily limited in ancient woodland due to other factors, but we are looking at much wider tree planting. The Forestry Commission goes on to recommend the consideration of re-stocking from more southerly origins in the right conditions. Proposed new subsection (2) flies in the face of the Forestry Commission’s advice for the reason of biosecurity. I cannot and do not believe that the Forestry Commission ignores biosecurity, but it also correctly takes into account climate change. The importation of tree seed from carefully selected stands should be actively encouraged.

The other part of this amendment which I greatly welcome is the encouragement given to UK growers and the expansion of the domestic industry. I thoroughly agree that everything should be UK-sourced, but perhaps the amount of time specified for replanting should be extended if an unrealistic timeframe has been given, as supplies from the UK growers are likely to be initially limited in view of the enormous size of potential planting over the next few years. Any clause on those lines must bear in mind that there needs to be joined-up thinking on all tree planting, and in particular that arising from the ELMS in the Agriculture Act, the provisions of the Environment Bill and, of course, the English tree strategy.

One slightly mischievous thought, however, occurs. Perhaps this proposed new clause, suitably amended, should form the missing subsection in Clause 100 of the Environment Bill, which is entitled “Tree felling and planting” but currently covers only felling. Perhaps the Minister could mention that to Defra.