High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis]

I did not. I said, “without proper parliamentary scrutiny”. There has been massive parliamentary scrutiny of this project. The Motion the noble Lord referred to, which he moved at Third Reading in January 2017, attracted 25 votes while there were 385 votes on the other side, so I do not think anyone can say that it is not the express will of Parliament that is leading HS2 to proceed.

The problem we have at the moment is, as I say, a left hand/right hand problem. On one hand, Parliament has given emphatic consent to this project to continue, and indeed to be authorised in the first place: not just the first phase, which passed this House by 385 votes to 25, and passed the House of Commons by 399 votes to 42—absolutely colossal majorities—but this Bill, extending HS2 from Birmingham to Crewe, was passed in the House of Commons in the middle of July by 263 votes to 17. There has been cross-party consensus and overwhelming support.

The Minister referred, and I assume that her officials were giving her very carefully crafted drafting in this respect, to the work taking place on HS2 as “preparatory work”. There is nothing preparatory about the work being done on HS2 at the moment. The line is being built; more than £5 billion has been spent and more than 1,000 people work at HS2 Ltd in Birmingham. If your Lordships go to Euston, you will see that it is not preparatory work that is leading to the virtual closure of the station, with huge tarpaulins up and big excavation works, but the construction of the railway line. It is right that this should happen, because, unless we start constructing it, it will never be there.

Parliament authorised this project to proceed two years ago. Billions of pounds have been spent, thousands of people are working on it—we expect this work to proceed. It is this that makes the review that has been set up so bizarre. At the same time as Parliament has given express and overwhelming authority for this work to proceed, thousands of people being employed and billions of pounds having been spent, what do the Government do, courtesy of the Prime Minister? They parachute in a fundamental review which is essentially conducting open-heart surgery on a moving patient, if I may mix my metaphors.

This whole project is being constructed, massive public expense is being entered into, and what do the Government do? They announce a strategic fundamental review, looking not just at the management of the project, which is absolutely appropriate to look at because it has not been good enough and is part of the reason we have the cost overruns, but the whole case for HS2, which has been approved by Parliament by majorities of more than 10 to one.

I see the clock is flashing, but I will carry on for a few more minutes because this is Second Reading.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

The noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, stuck to seven minutes.

[Lord Adonis]

There is not a fixed time limit. I will make two more points if I may.

When the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, said that the case for HS2 when it started was on speed and not capacity, that was completely untrue. I published the White Paper on HS2 in March 2010, the opening words of which were,

“the Government’s assessment is … That over the next 20 to 30 years the UK will require a step-change in transport capacity between its largest and most productive conurbations … alongside such … capacity, there are real benefits for the economy and for passengers from”—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Shouting at us for longer than the advisory speaking time really does not convince anyone. It does not look good and I think that we ought to have a little more courtesy.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

It is the Government who should have the courtesy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

My Lords, I am sorry to be slow in rising to my feet to speak, but I was so fascinated by the other speeches. I agree that the Minister gave a passionate opening speech, but I was not particularly convinced by it because I have huge concerns about HS2. Saying that there were 17,000 pages of environmental assessments did not really sway me, because the crucial thing is what is in those assessments. If they are 17,000 pages of nonsense, there is not much value in them.

Greens love railways: I love railways. I do not fly, I go on holiday by rail, and my partner works on the railways. I have nothing against railways. But I do have huge problems with HS2. As a Green I have lots of different concerns, but obviously, environmental concerns head the list. The Government have decided to shut Parliament down today, which does not allow us much time to speak. But that does not mean that sticking to an advisory time is not a courtesy to the rest of us, and to other people who have business coming through later.

The Government have commissioned a review, which is an excellent thing to do. I support that wholeheartedly. But I am curious about why they think it is worth putting the Bill through. Are we simply expected to speculate on the costs and the benefits? As the cost has been rising, the benefits have supposedly been rising at the same rate, but I am very dubious about that. Perhaps that is something that particularly needs looking at in the review.

It seems plain daft to pass a Bill before the review comes out and we have a view from those conducting it. However, I am glad that the Government are doing it, and I hope that they will take a serious look not only at the spiralling costs in order to develop a more sensible budget but at the cost of HS2 to our natural world, which I do not think has been fully explained. Local people are extremely concerned about local conditions; they are the people who actually understand their areas and they can see what is happening. In view of the climate emergency that Parliament declared back on 1 May this year, will the Minister confirm that the review will also be thinking about the enormous cost that HS2 is placing on the natural world?

We are looking at this second stage after the first stage has been started, and that first stage was actually extremely damaging in environmental terms. There are horror stories of environmental destruction and failed attempts at so-called biodiversity offsetting. Ancient woodlands were mentioned earlier; once an ancient woodland is destroyed, there is no way to replace it. In the meeting that I attended which the Minister was kind enough to offer us, I asked about that and was assured that there would be no net loss of biodiversity. I am afraid that that is absolute hokum because you cannot replace ancient woodland or the biodiversity that lives there.

At least 30% of the trees planted by HS2 have been allowed to die by neglect, and local campaigners say that the number is actually higher. The land manager of an ancient meadow has described his precious habitat as having been destroyed to create several access bridges for the purpose, ironically, of creating a biodiversity zone. Wildlife trusts have spoken out against HS2 and its plans to destroy precious habitats long before any habitat replacement is completed, leaving wildlife with nowhere to go. Will Ministers be visiting at least a few of the hundreds of wildlife habitats that will be permanently scarred or entirely destroyed by this project and listen to local people, who can explain it with as much passion as the Minister has to complete the project?

If this is how HS2 has been proceeding under legislation for the first section, where it is clear that the Bill has totally failed to protect the environment, that makes it very likely that the next section will also be hugely damaging. It is for those reasons that I will be opposing the Bill and proposing amendments that seek to protect the natural world that HS2 is destroying.

I could stand here for a further three or even six minutes and tell noble Lords about my holidays by rail, which obviously I love, but I am going to sit down.