My Lords, I am pleased to follow on from the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, because he picked up on an issue that I raised in the previous debate on this. Ancient woodland does not
necessarily mean ancient trees—they are of variable quality. However, of course, they include a number of fine pieces of woodland that have rich ecosystems because they have been on that site for a very long time.
I am pleased that the Minister has indicated that she will accept Amendment 13. The previous debate was characterised by very vigorous discussion between Members of this House with a considerable knowledge of environmental issues. There was an obvious level of disagreement among the experts and, therefore, Amendment 13 enables this not to become the subject of the debate. One assumes that the reports concerned will follow on from expert advice.
I hope that these annual reports will not be yet another bureaucratic process but a mechanism to enable public scrutiny of how HS2 is performing in practice and to ensure that there is progress and improvement in standards of land and woodland management as the project progresses. This is a massive project and there is no excuse for getting anything other than the most expert advice on woodland issues. In financial terms, the cost of woodland replanting and improvement is very small indeed in comparison with the costs of the engineering aspects of the project.
I will repeat a question I have asked before and come back to a topic I have dealt with before. Our rich environments—areas of outstanding environmental importance—are not just limited to ancient woodlands: wetlands and meadows can be every bit as important in terms of environmental and ecological significance.
5.30 pm
I ask the Minister, given that the amendment that she has indicated that she will accept is a very gentle amendment and will hardly stretch either the Government or HS2 in terms of complying with it, whether she would consider extending the reports concerned to include other aspects of environmental significance, such as wetlands and meadows. If we look at subsection (2)(b) of the proposed new clause, we see that it says that the reports might include
“such other information as may be specified by the Secretary of State.”
So I invite the Minister to consider whether those annual reports indicated as part of this amendment should be wider than just reports on woodland. They should be environmental reports in the general sense of that term, because, while the importance of the woodland is obviously significant, so are the other aspects of our very outstanding countryside.