My Lords, I hope that your Lordships can now hear me. I speak in support of Amendments 4 and 9, proposed by the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Tunnicliffe. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for his tenacity and detailed, professional questioning of what I call a farcical project—HS2.
I am afraid I must remind the Committee that had my amendment to the HS2 Bill, which I proposed on 31 January 2017, been passed, HS2 would now be history. Unbelievable amounts of money would have been saved and much anguish and environmental damage would have been prevented. I had just 26 supporters on that day in your Lordships’ House, but two of them were uniquely placed to understand the project. The noble Lords, Lord Burns and Lord Macpherson, had been Permanent Secretaries to the Treasury; one under Gordon Brown and the other in the time of David Cameron and George Osborne. They were both so convinced that HS2 was a mistake that they voted to stop it, even at that stage.
It has often been said that HS2 is a vanity project, and that is true. It was conceived in what can be described only as a fit of misplaced enthusiasm, costed on the back of an envelope and somehow pushed through government, where, just like the emperor’s new clothes, no one seemed able or prepared to ask the most fundamental questions about its feasibility. From the beginning, Ministers have stubbornly refused to listen to any suggestions of shortcomings, whether about speed, capacity, environment, construction or cost. Money is no object. HS2’s chief executive Mark Thurston has said:
“I’m not worried about overspending”.
When asked on the radio what the Government were prepared to spend on it, the then Transport Minister, Chris Grayling, replied “Whatever it takes.” If it takes £100 billion, we could rebuild every hospital in the country for that kind of money. This ministerial refusal to listen is what is frustrating so many railway professionals and interested organisations. It is, quite frankly, ridiculous that Government Ministers are not treating with more respect the views of those eminently qualified to contribute to the issue.
When HS2 was first conceived, a large body of professional railway engineers wrote to the Minister offering to come and see him to share their concerns. He refused even to see them. The advice of people such as Michael Byng, a recognised expert in the field, is ignored and the Woodland Trust, the custodian of our ancient woodlands, finds it impossible to obtain the information it needs. I recently received a communication from an organisation that had given evidence to our House of Lords Select Committee. It said:
“Unfortunately, we do not consider that we have received a fair hearing and feel that the hybrid Bill process is not an appropriate method for making independent and valued engineering, environmental and economic judgments about something so important as the HS2 project. It is also deeply frustrating that HS2 Ltd’s case and the evidence of its witnesses, however technically weak, is automatically accepted as unchallengeable, as if it was the gospel.”
Even as we speak, I understand that HS2 is carrying out work at Euston station which may never be needed. It is a shambles. I am delighted to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, which would bring a degree of accountability and sanity to this chaotic project, but I will not hold my breath.
I am also very happy to support Amendment 9 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. I am very grateful to the Woodland Trust for its very helpful briefing. It is quite intolerable that an organisation such as the Woodland Trust, custodian of our ancient woodlands, should find it so difficult to obtain information about what is happening to them. Our ancient woodlands are truly irreplaceable. Their soil structure, undisturbed for centuries, cannot possibly be recreated. The idea that they can be moved to other sites is laughable. No amount of tree planting can possibly compensate for the loss of our ancient trees. I have tabled Questions to try to discover the extent of the damage to date. I have been presented with the blandest Answers.
The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, would ensure that HS2 has to account for the damage it does, with facts and figures, which at the moment are so hard to come by. When, in this environmentally sensitive world, it is doing so much harm to the countryside, the very least it should be expected to do is regularly report on its actions and their consequences.