My Lords, I should like, first, to thank the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and the noble Baroness, Lady Vere of Norbiton, for their kind words about the work of the committee which I had the honour of chairing. This allows me the opportunity to thank the members of the committee who served with me through the various stages of our protracted proceedings. They were all a pleasure to
work with, and I owe a great deal to their experience and the thoughtful contributions they made to our debates as we listened to the various petitioners whose concerns we had to deal with. It is also right to thank the broadcasting team, who had a very difficult job not only in dealing with us when we were sitting virtually, but when we came back to the Committee Room and sat in a hybrid fashion. They were with us in the room and I had first-hand experience of their difficulties in trying to set up those communications. I offer them my sincere thanks, as well as to the members of the committee.
Turning to the amendment, I am very much in sympathy with what lies behind the request of the noble Baroness for great care to be taken in dealing with artefacts of this kind, in particular historical monuments and remains. Like the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, I have to say that our attention was not drawn to any burial sites or monuments at any stage during the proceedings. I would have expected the relevant parish council to have done that if there were any burial sites of substantial size, and certainly monuments. One thinks of war memorial monuments, for example. I am pretty sure that we would have been told if any were on the line of the route or within the trace—the areas to either side of the route that will be used for construction purposes. There was no suggestion that problems of that kind were likely to occur.
I think the noble Baroness would wish me to say that there is always the unexpected. As soon as you start digging up ground, you find out what is beneath it. One has to be alive to the fact that in the course of the works, things may be discovered that no one knew were there before, but which turn out to be of historical interest. So, like the noble Baroness, I expect an assurance from the Minister that great care will be taken if, by any chance, something of this kind is discovered. The works should be stopped so that an assessment can be made by qualified persons of how the remains, monuments or historical artefacts, if there be any, can be best preserved before they proceed any further. I do not imagine that that would cause a great deal of delay; it is important that we do not lose these historical records before they are gone for ever.