Business of the House

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend raises an important issue, and he will not be the only one with questions about it. As he may be aware, the next session of Justice questions is on 11 November—a week on Tuesday—so I encourage him to raise these subjects directly with the Justice Secretary then.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

May we have a debate on the importance of ancient woodland in the west midlands? In my constituency, proposals for HS2, despite some recent mitigations, will do significant damage to ancient woodland near Hints, and now Lafarge Tarmac has announced that it wants to demolish vast tracts of ancient woodland in Hopwas wood in order to quarry for gravel, outraging my constituents. A debate would allow us to discuss the importance of ancient woodland and how we can protect it.

[Mr Hague]

I have no doubt that my hon. Friend speaks for the concerns of many of his constituents on this. As he knows, the hybrid Bill on the first phase of HS2 is in Committee, where petitions are being heard. Ancient woodlands are a very important part of our national heritage. Where it has not been possible to avoid such sites in relation to HS2, we have been seeking refinements to the proposed line. I am sure he knows that we are committed to ensuring that appropriate mitigation measures are in place, including the transplantation of ancient woodland soils, where practicable, and the planting of 2 million trees during phase 1 of HS2.