High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Bill

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, there are some Bills going through the House with which we on the Liberal Democrat Benches disagree fundamentally. There are other Bills that we agree on the need for but disagree with the remedies prescribed by the Government, so it a pleasant change to provide support for this Bill, in both principle and detail. I thank the Minister and her officials for their thoroughness in providing a succession of briefings and for accepting the amendment providing for monitoring of the impact of construction of HS2 on ancient woodland. I take this opportunity to urge the Government to broaden the wording of that amendment to include sites of nature conservation value generally.

We are also indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who never shies away from the opportunity to press the case for HS2, as he has done today. The rumour mill is working at full tilt: well-placed sources, as they say, have indicated that the National Infrastructure Commission is about to recommend that the eastern leg up to Leeds, part of the next phase, should be scrapped. Credibility is given to this by the Government’s decision to split future Bills into smaller parts. I hope the rumours are wrong, but I fear that they are not. Since the job of the National Infrastructure Commission is to promote infrastructure, I ask the Minister what precise remit was given to it for this current review, if it is to recommend truncating HS2.

Abandoning the eastern leg now would be much worse than never having thought of it in the first place. It would be a high-profile public symbol that the Government do not care about the north-east, the poorest part of England. It would be a public snub to the area and would demonstrate that the levelling-up agenda is no more than a useful election slogan.

I am pleased to see the Bill through the House today. I hope the Government decide not to try to undo the amendments passed in this place. Our country is crying out for big, imaginative investment at a time when, as a nation, we are otherwise turning our backs on the modern world. As the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, said, HS2 is about much more than speed but, without speed, it will not be as successful at supplanting aviation for short-distance journeys and will not persuade people out of their cars. Above all, it is part of the transport revolution that climate change dictates.

HS2 has been supported over more than a decade by Government Ministers of all colours—Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative. Let us get this built as soon as possible but, for it to have the transformative effect envisaged, we need all of it—all the way to Scotland—and not a cut-down compromise.