Caroline Lucas
Main Page: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)Department Debates - View all Caroline Lucas's debates with the Department for Transport
(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell.
The Government’s response to the petition states that HS2 will be the
“long-lasting legacy for both wildlife and future generations.”
Well yes, it certainly will—a long-lasting legacy of environmental annihilation, eye-watering expense and broken promises.
I want to focus on the environmental harm of HS2, and I would point out that almost 600 Brighton constituents have signed the petition. If a convincing case for a new railway cannot be made on environmental grounds, that shows how fundamentally flawed the scheme must be. We face a climate and ecological emergency, and we need to start acting like we face such an emergency. Only if there are overwhelmingly positive environmental cases for HS2 should it go ahead. Clearly, there are not. However, there are, as we have heard this evening, many genuinely greener alternatives in which such large sums of money could and should be invested within the UK’s transport system. Let me give one more example: the New Economics Foundation estimates that a national rail investment fund of £55.2 billion over the next 10 years—just over half the cost of HS2—including £18.9 billion allocated to the north of England, would help commuters, speed up long-distance journeys, cut carbon emissions and bring benefits to many regions that are not even served by HS2.
On nature, the Government response to the petition says that there will be
“‘no net loss’ to biodiversity”.
Well, even if that were meaningful or credible—frankly, it is neither—it is utterly inadequate. The wildlife trusts have highlighted the fact that ancient woodland is
“by its very nature irreplaceable”,
so an ancient wood that is lost to HS2 is a permanent loss of nature and wildlife, yet 15 hectares of ancient woodland over 400 years old have already been obliterated. It speaks volumes that HS2 keeps no record of the number of trees felled. Can the Minister provide the figure for trees felled? I think that would be interesting.
Finally, on climate, the response by the Department for Transport to the petition claims that HS2
“will play a vital role in delivering the Government’s carbon net zero objectives”,
yet HS2’s own forecasts, even over 120 years, show the project will cause carbon emissions of 1.49 million tonnes. Achieving our climate goals means rapidly decarbonising the transport system, and protecting and restoring habitats such as woodland. HS2 does neither. Frankly, the way in which these decisions are being made does no justice to the seriousness of the situation, given what is at stake with environmental harm. The experience of HS2 shows that we need to change fundamentally our approach to economic decision making and to the criteria for major infrastructure projects. We urgently need to give top priority to the health and wellbeing of people and nature. It is time to stop annihilating nature in the name of short-term financial gain for some rather big construction corporations and the pursuit of infinite economic growth on our finite and fragile planet. The petitioners are right: HS2 should be scrapped.