Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will take steps to require HS2 to reduce the avoidable mortality of trees it plants; and if he will make it his policy that HS2 Ltd publish the results of their ecological monitoring.

HS2 Ltd’s contractors follow The National Plant Specification - Handling and Establishment (Published by The Committee for Plant Supply and Establishment, Revised edition, November 1995) which provides industry standard guidance on processes for plant handling and establishment on large scale planting projects. Aligning to industry guidance, HS2 Ltd expects plant failures across its construction sites to be within the best practice guidance range of 5-15%. Mortality within planted areas should be expected during the first several years and the Forestry Commission advises that the success of planted areas should be assessed after five years, by which time the planting should be close to achieving its aims. Plant failures are replaced to ensure HS2 Ltd maintains the Phase One commitment to plant and maintain up to seven million trees.

In terms of ecological monitoring, all data collected by HS2 Ltd is released on data.gov.uk at: https://data.gov.uk/dataset/1800a83a-1fc4-49e1-bac3-d970caf4451b/phase-one-ecological-survey-data. This dataset is refreshed on an annual basis and updated with any survey results collected within that period. In addition, HS2 Ltd circulates the results of the ecological monitoring work to an independent Ecology Review Group for feedback and comment.