High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Bill

Debate between Lord Snape and Baroness Henig

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee: 2nd sitting : House of Lords & Committee: 2nd sitting
Thursday 12th November 2020 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

I then call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Snape.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Lord, Lord Haselhurst. As members of the committee, we heard some familiar feelings from many of the petitioners. During my time in Westminster, I have served on committees on four hybrid Bills. Without exception, people affected by works of this kind go through various stages of concern, fear and outrage that their property could be taken, altered or knocked down. It is an inevitable consequence of projects of this size. However, like the noble Lord, Lord Haselhurst, I thought that those who appeared in front of the committee were treated pretty well by HS2 and its representatives. Like him, I saw many of them withdraw those petitions before it was necessary for us to come to a decision.

On all the hybrid Bills that I have served, without exception and across party, Members of both Houses have been aware of the sense of loss that people go through when their property is affected. We buy houses, too; we cherish our own homes and feel terribly strongly when projects such as this affect us.

Dealing with large organisations is never easy; I speak with some feeling here. I spent last night and the best part of about two hours this morning trying to get some sense out of Virgin Media, so I know how people feel and how irritated they become at saying the same thing to different people in the same organisation, but, by and large, it seemed to us on the committee—I think I speak for all of us who were on it—that HS2 did its best.

When Theo Clarke MP appeared before the committee on behalf of her constituents and others affected by this project, the chairman handled the matter in an exemplary way. The committee chairs on all the four hybrid Bills in which I have been involved have been pretty good, but the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, given his experience, was excellent in the way he handled both petitioners and HS2. Without knocking any heads together, and in his calm way, he got them to come to some sort of compromise. Therefore, like previous speakers, I do not see any need for this amendment. I just say to the Minister that if she can satisfy the noble Earl’s correspondent on every single one of those complaints, she will not be an Under-Secretary for very long.