HS2 Funding Referendum Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-23
Topic: Mixed Topics
Cheryl Elise Kendall Gillan (Conservative, Centre-right): The depth of ignorance knows no bounds in some instances. I am very depressed by the fact that people actually believe that one can replace ancient woodland. I have worked with the Woodland Trust. When I was first elected, Penn Wood in my constituency was one of the first major woods that the trust purchased and saved for posterity. The complexity of ancient woodland, with its soil and the way in which it is made up, cannot be replaced. We can have substitute woods put somewhere else, but they can never be replaced. Once they are gone, they are gone for ever. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention If one is going to spend £50 billion and disrupt the lives, businesses and homes of a number of people, money ought to be spent fully on compensation, as well as on protection of the environment. If one cannot afford to compensate people properly, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield said, it is a crying shame, because they are paying not once through their taxes but twice with the blight. It is unfair that the burden should fall disproportionately on those nearest to the ultimate route Another aspect that worries me, and which the Bill plays to in putting a referendum on this project before the people, is that I do not feel new technology and developments have been taken into account fully. I put a question to the Department for Transport on whether the impact of driverless cars had been taken into account when looking at the future development of the railways and other forms of transport. The written answer came back that they had not been taken into account, but that a study was going to be carried out. One cannot go ahead with a costly project over such a long period of time without looking at the impact of new technology. When I first came into the House, my secretary worked on a golf ball typewriter. I now carry with me an iPad on which I can FaceTime the world—all my e-mails come in and I can go on Twitter. The change in technology over 20 years has been absolutely phenomenal. That is the time scale of HS2. There will be all sorts of developments, not least if we can finally get good, first- class, rapid broadband into all parts of Buckinghamshire and all points north, east, south and west. There are going to be changes to business patterns, patterns of travel and style of travel. It is important that we look at horizon planning holistically before we commit to this sort of expenditure, and that we give people the chance to say what they want through a referendum, as envisaged in the Bill The Public Accounts Committee report was quoted extensively by the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras. He produced the summary, which is exactly the part I had underlined to read out to myself. What struck me is that the Department takes a piecemeal approach to rail investment. That is one of the most damning aspects of the report. It is important for the Department to go back to the drawing board and do some real horizon planning across the whole piece, looking at all our methods of transport, interoperability and connectivity. Otherwise, the white elephant that has been adopted as a sign by the anti-HS2 campaigners, will come to fruition. The PAC and the National Audit Office have consistently criticised the project, and that counts for a great deal. The NAO and the PAC are set up to scrutinise the type of expenditure envisaged here, and to tell it warts and all. The PAC is a cross-party Committee, so there is no political bias. Once again, it is not being listened to seriously at the highest levels of Government I will not go on for much longer, but I will leave the last words to my constituents. I have received literally hundreds of e-mails about the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has been mentioned in dispatches many times. E-mails have come not just from my constituents; they have come from around the country. Many people would like the Bill to come to fruition, although I know that at this time of the electoral cycle we do not have much hope of it going any further. I will leave it to my hon. Friend to decide what he wants to do with it.