High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Bill

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th November 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I would like to see huge, wholescale changes made to the high-speed rail programme but in the meantime, reporting and reviewing its impact is important so that Parliament and the public can properly scrutinise HS2. The burial and disposition of the dead has a deeply symbolic and important status in every culture. I might be alone in those contributing to this debate in, as a new archaeologist, having dug up a skeleton—a Roman skeleton that was nearly 2,000 years old. However, the skeleton was still treated with respect and dignity. I imagine that most of us would accept that that is normal when dealing with the remains of the buried. I would say also, as an archaeologist, that the information you can get from bones is fantastically useful.

There is an inherent aversion to disturbing the dead. Amendment 2 seeks to improve the excavation of burial sites by HS2 through a process of reporting and evaluation, which is utterly sensible. I hope that the Government will pick up this amendment and use it as an indication of respect for the remains that are being disturbed.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I should like, first, to thank the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and the noble Baroness, Lady Vere of Norbiton, for their kind words about the work of the committee which I had the honour of chairing. This allows me the opportunity to thank the members of the committee who served with me through the various stages of our protracted proceedings. They were all a pleasure to work with, and I owe a great deal to their experience and the thoughtful contributions they made to our debates as we listened to the various petitioners whose concerns we had to deal with. It is also right to thank the broadcasting team, who had a very difficult job not only in dealing with us when we were sitting virtually, but when we came back to the Committee Room and sat in a hybrid fashion. They were with us in the room and I had first-hand experience of their difficulties in trying to set up those communications. I offer them my sincere thanks, as well as to the members of the committee.

Turning to the amendment, I am very much in sympathy with what lies behind the request of the noble Baroness for great care to be taken in dealing with artefacts of this kind, in particular historical monuments and remains. Like the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, I have to say that our attention was not drawn to any burial sites or monuments at any stage during the proceedings. I would have expected the relevant parish council to have done that if there were any burial sites of substantial size, and certainly monuments. One thinks of war memorial monuments, for example. I am pretty sure that we would have been told if any were on the line of the route or within the trace—the areas to either side of the route that will be used for construction purposes. There was no suggestion that problems of that kind were likely to occur.

I think the noble Baroness would wish me to say that there is always the unexpected. As soon as you start digging up ground, you find out what is beneath it. One has to be alive to the fact that in the course of the works, things may be discovered that no one knew were there before, but which turn out to be of historical interest. So, like the noble Baroness, I expect an assurance from the Minister that great care will be taken if, by any chance, something of this kind is discovered. The works should be stopped so that an assessment can be made by qualified persons of how the remains, monuments or historical artefacts, if there be any, can be best preserved before they proceed any further. I do not imagine that that would cause a great deal of delay; it is important that we do not lose these historical records before they are gone for ever.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

I agree with everything that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, has just said. I would just add one point. Crossrail has considerable experience of burial sites and monuments and is generally acknowledged to have dealt with them sensitively and to have made a significant contribution to the archaeological history of Britain. In respect of dealing properly with human remains, it has been extremely sensitive at every stage and has arranged for reburial as appropriate. I would have thought that the Crossrail experience offers a good example to HS2.

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[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I very much agree with what my noble friend Lord Adonis has just said and disagree with my noble friend Lord Berkeley. As a member of the Select Committee, I did not feel bullied by the government counsel on this question. We considered the issue in depth, and the reasons why we said we would not consider such orders seemed valid in the light of that discussion. I am sure the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, can give a much more elegant legal explanation of these issues than I can.

When the Bill goes through the Commons, the Select Committee can recommend fundamental changes to the route of the line by making additional provisions, but the convention has been established that the Lords does not revisit these questions on petitions that are made to it. Therefore, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, announced at the start of our proceedings that we would not be recommending additional provisions and would be sticking with the convention. Then, of course, people say, “You could use transport and works orders”, but, in effect, they another form of additional provision. As I understand it, if this point were conceded, the decision-making process would be taken out of Parliament and put into the hands of the Secretary of State. It would then be subject to all the arguments about judicial review and whether things have been done properly that have bedevilled plans for airport expansion in this country, for example.

As a non-lawyer, I was totally persuaded by the argument that we should not contemplate these orders. We listened to the argument that was made in the infamous case of the Stone depot, and I was totally unpersuaded that, even if we had had the power to make such an order, it was actually sensible.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for his kind words when he spoke in support of his amendment, although I did detect a hint of criticism. I am not going to respond to that, but instead offer, if I may, the Minister some guidance in responding to this issue, based on my experience as a lawyer.

Everything that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, has said, I agree with. He set the scene very well indeed, but I would like to make it clear that there is a good deal more substance to the point he made, which I would like to touch upon. Before I go further, lest there be any misunderstanding, I should make it clear that in my view, the petitioner who raised the issue about the Stone IMB-R—the railhead at Stone—was not in any way attempting to delay the scheme or have it cancelled. It was a genuine attempt to put forward an alternative method of dealing with the very complex issue of how the railhead should be constructed. It raised all sorts of other questions, such as ground conditions. They put forward a genuine issue in good faith. The question is: should we have gone further, to the point of making a direction? It should not be forgotten that a committee like ours, after hearing a petition, either makes an order or does not. In this case, it would have been a direction to HS2 to proceed by a TWA.

Proceeding by way of a TWA is not a simple matter. It is not a foregone conclusion that, just by asking for an order to be granted, it will be granted. The statute lays down a procedure that involves the making of objections, for obvious reasons, because people whose land would be taken have to be given a chance to be heard, and it would result in the holding of a public inquiry. One has to bear in mind, given the stage at which the issue was raised with us, that there is the very considerable question whether the time and effort involved, were we to make such a direction, would be justified.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham. No? Perhaps we can come back to the noble Lord. I call the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I endorse everything that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said, based on his experience as a member of our committee.

The noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, mentioned that, proportionately, more woodlands are affected by this project than in the case of HS2 phase 1. One should not be surprised about that, because it takes a long time to get out of the built-up area around London, and quite a long time before its begins to reach the much more urban countryside through which this phase passes. Therefore it is a feature of this particular phase that we encountered a lot of countryside, a lot of farmland, and indeed woodlands.

The noble Lord was perfectly correct and the statistics are these: 10 areas of woodland are affected, of which about 9.8 hectares will be lost due to the project. Most of them are quite small but there is a particular one, at Whitmore Wood, where a substantial amount will be lost but there is a good deal of replanting and enhancement going on to make up for that.

As far as the issue of net gain is concerned, we discussed that at some length with the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts. To endorse the point that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, made about the sensitive way in which HS2 was approaching these issues in our inquiry, we did have quite a lot of discussion about how net loss and net gain could be addressed. It was counsel for HS2 who suggested perhaps a nuanced approach to this issue would be appropriate and, based on what he said, in our report we encouraged HS2 to continue that approach. Shortly afterwards, a written assurance was given to that trust, which the trust has accepted.

One of the problems with going too far with promoting net gain is that before you get very far you find yourself having to acquire more land. That would be acquiring more land from hard-pressed farmers who are already losing a substantial amount of land as a result of the line itself and its associated works. We were very cautious not to be led too far down that path. One has to bear in mind, too, that a community development fund has been set up that would enable other landowners who feel that they can give up part of their land to obtain funding to make up the loss of woodland that is due to the scheme. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, with great respect, is absolutely right about the sensitive way in which this matter has been dealt with by HS2, so far as we can see in the material that was before us at the inquiry.

There is, however, one matter I would like to express concern about: the woodland indirectly affected. We were not asked to examine any of these, but the kind of effects that are likely happen would include vibration and dust from the movement of a very large number of vehicles over a substantial period. This is something to be careful about, considering the impact on woodlands that have not been taken down but are in the vicinity and where wildlife exists that may be very disturbed by what is going on. There is certainly something to be said for the thinking behind this particular amendment—I am talking about Amendment 9—with regard to the indirect effect on other woodlands in the very attractive area through which this particular line is going to pass.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

The noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, will have to unmute himself in order to join us. If he cannot unmute at his end, I am afraid the technicians cannot do it this end. Sadly, I think we are going to have to wait for another amendment for a contribution from the noble Lord. I call the next speaker: the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson.