High Speed 2 (Economic Affairs Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2020-01-23
Topic: Environment
Barbara Young (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Woodland Trust The Economic Affairs Committee was critical of the appraisal process for large infrastructure projects such as HS2. I want to add another criticism of that process and of the Oakervee report’s terms of reference. Neither took proper account of environmental costs and the consequent long-term economic costs of a damaged environment. The current HS2 route damages or destroys at least 108 irreplaceable ancient woodlands. These environmental costs and their implications have not been factored into decisions or Oakervee’s considerations As noble Lords may have noticed, the UK is in the middle of a climate change and biodiversity emergency—a key issue during the last election. Trees and woodland were recognised by all the main political parties as key tools in combating both elements of this twin emergency. This week, the Woodland Trust published its emergency tree plan, which sets out clearly why not only new planting but the protection of existing trees, and especially of ancient woodland, are vital if we are to reduce the amount of carbon already in the atmosphere while restoring our threatened biodiversity The Government have pledged policies of no net loss of biodiversity for construction projects and biodiversity net gain for planning applications. No amount of new tree planting by HS2 can compensate for the destruction of irreplaceable ancient woodland. Indeed, HS2 Ltd’s own calculations admit that it is not achieving no net loss for phase 1 or phase 2a I hope that the Minister will not say, as she has said previously, that HS2 is damaging only a small proportion of ancient woodland. That reflects a sort of salami-slicing approach to planning: HS2 will not damage much, the Oxford-Cambridge Arc will not damage much—and then some other development proposal will not damage much. Only 2% of our ancient woodland is left, so if we salami-slice in this fashion, soon there will not be any at all It is not just trees that are the environmental casualties. Recently the Wildlife Trust highlighted the risk of damage to five internationally protected wildlife sites—so much for international protection. It has highlighted the impact on 33 sites of special scientific interest, which are supposed to be the jewels in the crown: the most highly protected sites in the country. It went on to highlight damage and threat to 693 local wildlife sites which have been judged to be important in the local context and are much treasured by local people. Indeed, damage is risked to four nature improvement areas, three of which have already been funded by Defra. We really need to take stock again on HS2 and the damage it is causing to the environment HS2 Ltd is not even getting any better between phases at avoiding ancient woodland and protecting biodiversity. In spite of much nagging by the NGO movement and a process to learn the lessons from phase 1, phase 2a will affect 15% more ancient woodland per kilometre than phase 1. Few lessons were learned from the phase 1 experience. In my view, a clue to at least part of the problem lies in the name "HS2". We are told that many sites have to be damaged because at the high speeds being proposed, the track cannot wiggle around—please note my great technical grasp—sensitive sites. However, the reality of the connectivity problem that we are trying to solve is that we do not need these massive speeds to reduce journey times; rather, we need additional capacity for passengers and the means to separate people and freight in order to enhance freight capacity. We should be talking about MS2—middling speed 2. That would be perfectly adequate and in many cases could be achieved by introducing four tracks on existing routes, costing less and reducing the environmental damage The report rightly prioritises Northern Powerhouse Rail—in deference to my noble friend Lord Hunt, I will add the Midlands proposition—but says that it depends on phase 2 of HS2. Priority for the north is vital, but let it be fed by phase 2 of "middling speed 2", to reduce environmental damage and costs while still boosting the economies of the north I want to ask the Minister four direct questions. Will the Government require the full environmental costs to be considered as part of the appraisal or reappraisal of this project? When will the Government publish the Oakervee report and reach a decision on HS2? Will they reset the priority as investment in the north, but on the basis of a "middling speed 2", rather than the high-speed phase 2 of HS2? Will they also ensure that if HS2 does go ahead, even on the basis of its updated estimate of £106 billion, ongoing cost-cutting measures will not target the already inadequate level of environmental mitigation which has been so hard won, such as tunnelling to avoid damage to ancient woodland and other sensitive sites? We have already seen examples of environmental mitigation such as the tunnel at Whitmore, which would have avoided substantial ancient woodland loss, be rejected by the House of Commons committee on the basis of cost—at a time when the total cost was only £56 billion. How will the Minister ensure that more environmental mitigation will not be slashed in the effort to cut costs I said that I wanted to ask four questions—I lied; there are five. The last question is, does the Minister believe that the Prime Minister has the backbone to honour his green election pledges and announce radical changes to this unaffordable and damaging project Before I finish, I will add two issues. Several noble Lords have advocated a statutory basis for the National Infrastructure Commission. I make a plea for any statutory basis to lay a requirement on the NIC to deliver for the environment. It is currently so focused on driving forward on infrastructure that it forgets that the Government are ostensibly committed not only to economic growth but to climate change reduction and to combating biodiversity declines. The NIC is just tipping over into getting to grips with the concept of net zero, but still seems to think that biodiversity is a washing powder The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said that we have to keep going on current proposals because the hybrid Bill process has included the most extensive and exhaustive public and parliamentary scrutiny. I agree with him that it was exhaustive, but that process, which was invented aeons ago, is cumbersome, inflexible, lengthy, expensive and unfair to the public and stakeholders. We need a new process.