High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill

Debate between Ivan Lewis and Antoinette Sandbach

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 15th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Antoinette Sandbach]

Sadly for Eddisbury, the number of losers there is very large. It will cost an extra £100 million just to do the extra 20 km of track from Crewe past Winsford. The geotechnical engineer’s report that was served on HS2 many years ago has not yet been answered. I would much rather see that money going into improving public services and housing stock in my area.

New clause 5 seeks to restrict use of non-disclosure agreements by HS2. The reason that I tabled it is that a business in my constituency has been asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement, and it potentially affects the jobs of 166 of my constituents. I do not think it right that Members of Parliament are being denied information that is being stitched up by HS2. This relates not only to private businesses but to councils, in relation to denying elected members information. That is why the new clause is necessary.

Scarcely a day passes without a discussion on non-disclosure agreements. Last week, there was a discussion on NDAs in relation to the Labour party, but we have also seen questions about their use by businessmen and others to keep former employees and others quiet about information or personal conduct within a company. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr), who sits with me on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, for his work on the all-party parliamentary group on whistleblowing. The group has today launched a report calling for reforms to the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. What concerns me most is that HS2 appears to be stepping up its use of NDAs. Last Wednesday, the hon. Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis) described HS2 as having signed more than 270 NDAs, and the New Civil Engineer reports that the figure could be as high as 280, with 40% of them having been signed in the last year.

[Mr Ivan Lewis]

Last week, the hon. Lady’s party rightly called for Labour to do something about non-disclosure agreements in relation to staff employed in the Labour party. Does she agree that, to be consistent, Ministers should instruct HS2 to release people from their obligations under non-disclosure agreements so that they can share with the House the truth about their experience of the capacity and cost issues when they were working for the organisation? Her new clause deals with the future, but does she agree that it should be able to deal with the past, too?

[Antoinette Sandbach]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point. He will see from the drafting of my new clause that it would allow an assessor to assess NDAs that have already been signed, and to allow them to be retained only in circumstances of exceptional commercial confidentiality. I would argue that that is the only ground for retaining them, and that an independent assessor—either a QC or a former High Court judge—should be appointed to assess those NDAs.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

So far, HS2 has refused to answer freedom of information requests. It claims, in answers given to me as a result of FOI requests, that it is unable to provide answers because it does not know how many NDAs its lawyers have got people to sign and because it would cost too much to provide a Member of Parliament with details of the number of NDAs.

[Mr Lewis]

Is it not true that a number of former senior HS2 employees who have expressed concerns about financial information provided to the House and other appropriate oversight bodies were soon asked to leave the organisation on the basis of non-disclosure? Does the hon. Lady agree that that is incredibly serious, which is why Ministers should instruct that those people be released from those non-disclosure obligations as soon as possible?