High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Bill

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Grieve]

I am so grateful to my hon. Friend. Yes, these are precisely the areas where Government intervention would be valuable. I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench, even at this late hour, to give this careful consideration.

There is a similar story on the relationship with local authorities. Most of our local authorities, like all local authorities in this country, given the difficult conditions resulting from the continuing economic problems besetting our planet, are short of money to carry out important local projects. Therefore, the prospect of having their infrastructure ripped up during the construction process is inevitably a subject of legitimate concern to them. There is no proper reason why they and the local council tax payer should have to bear the end cost, of any description, on this project going ahead. Here again is an opportunity for my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench to beef this up and provide the necessary tools to ensure that HS2 honours these commitments.

I am no position to speak to HS2, and I do not understand why it has been so deficient in its approach to dealing with local communities, but that is the reality. I note from the Public Administration Committee’s most recent report that HS2 says that it has learnt its lessons and will do things differently in future. I very much hope that is the case, but until I actually see it with my own eyes and witness it from the comments of my constituents, I have reason to continue to doubt that that will in fact happen. That is all the more reason why these amendments, which are straightforward and should not add to HS2’s costs, or indeed to the burden of carrying out the project, ought to be accepted.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

I rise to support new clauses 26 and 32. Paradoxically, I agree with most of what has been said today, because I do think that it is possible to be pro-infrastructure investment, pro-progress and pro-brand new trains. I am pro the concept of high-speed rail, but I am not pro-HS2 Ltd and, as the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) said, the rather cavalier way it operates. In the Select Committee its QC called my residents tedious, which I thought showed complete contempt for them.

New clause 26 is about protecting vulnerable businesses and the time given for relocation. I have spoken to some of the businesses in the Park Royal area of my constituency. The businesses there are quite mixed. Many of them deal with food preparation—for example, supplying olives to restaurants in the west end—and need to be close to the A40, which is a vital artery. They are family businesses. They have been told that when it happens they will be given three months to relocate. They have a combined turnover in the millions. They are all extremely concerned that they will be forced to close because three months is not enough time for them to start again.

I spoke with a prop hire company. It occupies thousands of square feet of warehouse space, with antiques and big fat televisions behind wooden veneer cabinets. It supplies props for films such as “Star Wars”. It would find it very difficult to find alternative premises quickly. Those companies would also like an assurance of 100% compensation for their sites, not the 90% on offer.

The Conservative party is the party of business, surely. It is the party of small and medium-sized enterprises. [Interruption.] I think this new clause has genuine cross-party support, judging by the Members who have signed it. It is deeply worrying that those firms are being forced to move towards what is called extinguishment, because apparently their balance sheets do not show enough turnover, so HS2 considered their financial value to be too small to warrant relocation. That is a slap in the face and an insult to hard-working, small family businesses.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is doing a brilliant job of representing her constituents, as she always does. Does she agree—I think this is the purpose of her new clauses—that it is often the businesses in urban areas that are the most fragile and therefore the worst affected, but the levels of compensation and concern shown to them is the worst on offer—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. We do not have time for long interventions.

[Dr Huq]

My hon. Friend puts it very well. He anticipates my new clause 32, which is about the fairness of the rural support zone. I know the constituency of the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) well, because she and I were on the same ballot paper in 2005. She represents a rural constituency, but the urban and suburban constituencies, such as mine and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), are not treated the same as rural support zones. I believe that needs to be looked at.

One house in my constituency has a zero valuation—you could not make this up. Someone wanted to re-mortgage a house in Wells House Road, and the mortgage valuer came up with zero. That would not happen elsewhere. For the sake of fairness, that should be looked at. There seems to be a wrong assumption—[Interruption.] Madam Deputy Speaker, I am aware that there is about to be a vote, so I will say my last sentence. We should not accept that suburban or urban dwellers should simply put up with it. I urge Members to support my two new clauses.

[Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

I rise to speak to the new clauses in my name and to put the case of my constituents in North Warwickshire, which is arguably the most blighted part of the HS2 route, outside of London.

I would like to use the short time available to make a final case to the Government to adopt vital protections for local communities such as Kingsbury, Water Orton, Coleshill, Middleton, Lea Marston and Wishaw. Those protections are set out in my three new clauses, as well as in provisions tabled by other right hon. and hon. Members, which I have co-signed.

A recurring theme my constituents have faced is the lack of engagement from HS2 Ltd during the process to date. Many of the questions that have been asked of the company remain unanswered, and its credibility locally is in tatters. Those affected by HS2 have little confidence that communication will get better during the construction stage; indeed, unsurprisingly, the fear is that, should the Bill be approved by the House, communication will get worse.

That is why I seek greater protection for North Warwickshire residents. As a result of the impact on our area, we have been given an assurance by HS2 that we are a special case. Sadly, despite numerous requests, the company has neglected to advise us what that protection actually is, what the benefits are or even what it covers. After what my constituents have had to endure over the last six years, they deserve better. They deserve some kind of certainty and an acknowledgment that HS2 and the Government are sympathetic to their case.

That is why I have introduced new clause 30, which would set up a community fund to protect local communities from the unintended consequences that could arise in the construction phase. The fund would supplement the community and environment fund, and it would address the adverse impacts of HS2’s construction on communities in terms of things such as impaired accessibility, the reduction in the availability of community amenities and the physical effects of construction.

A principal objective of the fund will be to remove the need for formal compensation claims and to provide an expedited means of claiming funding for detriment. The fund would be available only to address adverse effects on communities, not impacts on individual households, businesses or undertakings. However, among the things that may be considered as eligible for funding would be transport facilities such as shuttle services.

As I have stated, the Kingsbury area and the surrounding villages are clearly a special case in the context of the HS2 scheme, and there can be no argument about that. Engagement with our community needs to address the requirements that come with that special place, and my other new clauses address the current lack of communication, including in terms of referral, escalation and monitoring. Crucially, they seek to ensure that local people’s complaints are resolved in a timely manner.

We will hear further arguments later today in the Chamber about HS2’s environmental impact, and it is hard to imagine the change to the landscape that the railhead in Kingsbury will bring, but my constituents will be forced to live with that change.

I urge the Secretary of State to consider my proposed changes to the Bill and those of other right hon. and hon. Members, which I have supported in the interests of our constituents. Our proposals offer common-sense initiatives to support, and offer mitigation to, those people along the proposed line who need it most.