HS2 may well embrace young people’s entire careers, as the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) suggested, and they will have good careers out of it if it is built. However, I do not underestimate the fortunes being made—by the top echelons of HS2, certainly, but also by people who are benefiting from very lucrative contracts at the taxpayer’s expense.
I presume—and I am hardly surprised—that the Government have accepted the Lords amendments. A number of them correct inaccuracies, many of which have been and continue to be attached to this project, and which have been a source of great anxiety on the part of people directly affected. I join those on both Front Benches in saying thank you to their lordships, who were restricted in what they could do. They were unable to amend the Bill significantly—they could not make any additional provisions—and we are therefore dealing with a group of amendments that the Government are, of course, able to accept in their entirety because they do not do that much to the Bill.
I must say that I would welcome the acceptance of Lords amendment 4, which I call the “land grab” amendment, because it would limit the power of the state to acquire land compulsorily in association with the project for the purposes of regeneration or development. I think it fair to say that the current Secretary of State for Transport, when lobbied by me and by many others—particularly the CLA—responded very positively. Such a sweeping power would have added insult to injury, namely the plundering of property that has resulted from a project that is as ravenous for land as it is for taxpayers’ money. Without the amendment, the Government would have been able to buy up land for lucrative developments virtually without control.
However, some of my constituents have serious concerns about schedule 16. They believe that HS2 has only to give 28 days’ notice to enter, do what it likes to the land and pay no compensation until the job is finished, which they believe could take many years. During those years, my constituents would have to shoulder the loss of value to property and income. My right hon. and learned
Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) believes that there are constituents fighting to prove that they are affected by HS2, whose applications for compensation have been successful, but who are still struggling to agree on a value for their property. When the Minister responds to these amendments, I wonder whether he will care to say something in relation to that and this land grab amendment, which I am grateful the Government are accepting.