High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-11-30
Topic: Public Lands
Alexander Randall (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, in moving Amendment 2, I will speak also to Amendments 3, 14 and 15 in my name. I rather regret not speaking on the previous debate, for two reasons. First, I would have been able to put to bed the idea that I am not supportive of high-speed rail. I support extending it; if not, what was the point of having just London to Birmingham? The second, perhaps more pressing, reason is to wish my noble friend Lord McLoughlin, who is not speaking on any of the other groups I am speaking on, a happy birthday. He reminded us of his innate good sense; he was the first Secretary of State for Transport to really mention that the issue of HS2 was capacity rather than high speed. I rather wish others had got there first I put these amendments down mainly as a result of the story around the memorial garden—arboretum, if you like—for Rennie Grove Hospice Care. Some trees were cut down that had plaques on them in memorial for children who had unfortunately died prematurely. We can all understand the hurt that that will have caused. I asked the Public Bill Office—I thank it for its help—how I could try to raise this. I do not intend to put any of these amendments to a vote, but I want some reassurance from my noble friend the Minister. I thank my noble friend, who has met with me on a couple of occasions, on the first of which I raised this issue, and our honourable friend Andrew Stephenson in the other place, who was also genuinely concerned about these reports. I have received a letter back There are a couple of issues on which we need some reassurance. I put "including trees" in Amendment 3 because one thing that occurred to me when looking through the Bill was that it refers to "monuments", and I was not sure whether memorial trees count as monuments. I would like that clarified. If they do not, we should consider including them, because they are now very common—particularly when we are trying to have tree-planting, as they are a way of combining the memorial with doing something good for the environment. The Woodland Trust has done a lot in that capacity I tabled Amendment 2, saying that remains must have been buried for "at least one year", and other amendments in my name because I could foresee a situation where some people might suddenly claim that a tree that had been planted had become a memorial. That is why there must be a timescale. Protestors—I have sympathy with some of them, though not all—might come up with innovative ways to try to impede this. If there is a memorial tree, I want it to be absolutely genuine The other amendments would ensure that the undertaker—a slightly unfortunate use of the word here—has some responsibility to inform the deceased’s next of kin and to ensure that they give them ample time. The letter that was sent to me said that HS2 had given the hospice a month’s notice that these works would take place. I am not sure that a month’s notice is sufficient in this case, to be honest. I want to go round this course to see what can be done, because we do not want any repeats of this.