High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill

Baroness Fookes Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

My Lords, the Hybrid Sitting of the House will now resume. Some Members are here in the Chamber and others are participating remotely, but all Members will be treated equally. I ask all Members to respect social distancing. If the capacity of the Chamber is exceeded, I will immediately adjourn the House.

I will call Members to speak in the order listed in the annexe to today’s list. Interventions during speeches or “before the noble Lord sits down” are not permitted and uncalled speakers will not be heard. Other than the mover of an amendment or the Minister, Members may speak only once in each group. Short questions of elucidation after the Minister’s response are permitted but discouraged. A Member wishing to ask such a question, including Members in the Chamber, must email the clerk. The groups are binding, and it will not be possible to degroup an amendment for separate debate. A Member intending to press an amendment already debated to a Division should have given notice in the debate. Leave should be given to withdraw amendments. When putting the Question, I will collect voices in the Chamber only. If a Member taking part remotely intends to trigger a Division, they should make this clear when speaking on the group. We will now begin.

Amendment 9

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

Amendment 9 withdrawn.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

My Lords, we now come to the group beginning with Amendment 10. I remind noble Lords that Members other than the mover and the Minister may speak only once and that short questions of elucidation are discouraged. Anyone wishing to press this or the other amendment in this group to a Division should make that clear in debate.

Amendment 10

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

We now come to Amendment 16. I remind noble Lords that Members other than the mover and the Minister may speak only once and that short questions of elucidation are discouraged. Anyone wishing to press this amendment to a Division should make that clear in debate.

Schedule 23: Party walls etc

Amendment 16

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

I know that this is all about phase 1 and it cannot be changed now, but we should learn from this lesson. I do not know what can be done about phase 1. We should learn from this lesson for HS2 phase 2. It is a smaller project although, as the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, said, there will be some party walls. It would be a good opportunity to try out what he suggested to achieve something that can deliver proper party wall-balanced solutions without delaying the project. I fully support the amendment.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has withdrawn, so we now turn to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, for his sterling efforts to help us poor lay men understand the complexity of the topic involved in these amendments. I have a rather unfashionable approach to experts; I tend to think that we should listen to them. On this occasion, I also urge the Government to do so.

Having reread the Minister’s response to the last debate on this, I did not gather from that a good, clear reason why the well-established practice is being abandoned. It is clear that the 1996 Act is well established and has worked well, and it seems strange to replace a consensual approach to a problem with an adversarial system. In my experience, adversarial systems always cost more in the end. They can also prove very unfair to those who do not have the nature or the money to embark on an adversarial fight, which can often last months and years, and who therefore decline to press their case when indeed they should be doing so. I urge the Minister to ensure that HS2 is approaching this in a sensible manner for the next phase of the development.