High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-11-30
Topic: Transportation
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I too support these amendments, particularly Amendments 5 and 6. The destruction of ancient woodland has been exacerbated by the frankly disastrous public relations of HS2 on phase 1, which the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, mentioned. It has done nothing to endear HS2 to residents up and down the line of phase 1. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, has outlined the problems very well, along with my noble friend Lady Young I will concentrate on something that my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone asked, which is whether you can avoid ancient woodland by slowing the trains down. It is a rather simplistic explanation on my part, because there is nothing to be done on phase 1. The line is there, HS2 has started clearing everything and we have seen the results. When it comes to the next phases, 2b west and 2b east—if it happens—which we have debated at length today, it would be possible to avoid much ancient woodland if Ministers look at the routing of the line. My noble friends Lady Young and Lord Snape talked about speeds, but obviously the faster a train goes, the straighter the line it goes on must be, not only on plan, but on profile. When you do not want too many humps and bumps, your cuttings and embankments get bigger and you take more land, including, possibly, a lot of ancient woodland Many noble Lords have been on the French high-speed line between Paris and Lyon, which was the first one built. I once had the privilege of being in the driver’s cab and found it to be rather like a fairground switchback. It was designed to avoid not only woodlands, also valleys and hills, to save on the cost. Even so, it goes at 270 kilometres per hour, which the French thought was fast enough. We prefer 400 kilometres per hour, because obviously we are a bigger country than France and want to be the best in the world, which is total rubbish. Even if we stuck to 270 kilometres per hour, the French speed, we could probably do something, but I hope that when HS2 and the Government plan phase 2b west, to Manchester, and phase 2b east, to Leeds and Sheffield, if it gets built that way, they look at the speeds and see how the alignment can be done to avoid ancient woodland, at an early stage before the Bill is published That is why I could not support my noble friend Lord Adonis’s amendment saying that everything had to be done in a hurry and within six months. As the Minister explained in her response, these things take time, and during that time, those of us who have an interest in avoiding ancient woodland and anything else that we feel needs preserving must look at it and relate it to the design speed of the alignment I suppose my last, rather facetious, comment—or maybe it is not facetious—is about phase 2a. The Bill is published, we are debating the Bill on Report tonight and it will probably get Royal Assent quite soon. Of course, if there are any ancient woodlands in the way—and I am afraid I do not know whether there are—one could suggest to Ministers that they make a slight deviation on the route of the line, using a Transport and Works Act order, which I also spoke about earlier. I am sure the Minister will not like that idea, but it is an option and it could be looked at.