High Speed 2: Impact on Communities

Debate between Danny Beales and Joy Morrissey

Tuesday 19th May 2026 Commons Chamber

[Joy Morrissey]

I thank the hon. Lady for that excellent point. I know her seat very well, and she has fought for her constituents, including in Old Oak Common, for many years. It is fair that compensation be given continually for the disruption in Old Oak Common. It is a difficult area, because it involves not just Ealing, but Hammersmith, Fulham and several other areas that intersect. It creates a problem where no one takes leadership, and no one ensures that those residents are taken care of. The hon. Lady has long advocated for that compensation.

We stand here in agreement that HS2 has not cared about our residents or the compensation. We have seen other infrastructure models that have given the compensation that residents need and want.

[Danny Beales (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady is being generous with her time, and I thank her for bringing this important debate to the House. She has expertly described the ongoing impacts in communities like ours. Residents in West Ruislip and Ickenham in my constituency live day in, day out with the consequences of HS2 works. As she rightly points out, residents often ask what compensation and support exists. It is frustrating in that regard that the community and environment fund and the business and local economy fund, which were allocated across the country, remain significantly unspent. Millions of pounds are still unspent, despite our communities being blighted. Does she agree that that is frustrating for our communities and local organisations, who could benefit from that money but are shut out of those funds? Does she also agree that the geographical remit needs to be widened slightly and that we need to do more nationally to ensure that those funds get to communities?

[Joy Morrissey]

It is incredibly frustrating that those funds are not open and available, particularly when as Members of Parliament we have come forward with good ideas for how they could be spent on road infrastructure, such as paving potholes on roads destroyed by the lorries that have passed through. It is very difficult to access that funding, but it would go a long way towards bridging the community relations that have broken down anywhere that HS2 has started.

Another issue is that, in the old days, HS2 would take over a property without paying for it and then occupy it indefinitely.