As the right hon. Gentleman will know, I am concentrating on Chesham and Amersham. Fortunately, our petitioning process is at its initial phase. The Committee will hear about the tunnelling options worked up by my community and local authorities, and it will then hear from some 800 petitioners. As far as my constituency is concerned, I hope the best is yet to come, but the right hon. Gentleman’s comments reflect some anxiety that HS2 Ltd and the Department may not be listening
entirely to what petitioners have to say. However, the Prime Minister assured me in a recent letter that the Department and HS2 are listening to petitioners, so once again I am optimistic and I hope my optimism will be rewarded.
The high-level changes that are indicated in the instruction lead me to question the way in which the explanatory information on the additional provisions has been presented. It is not clear who HS2 is responding to in instructing the Committee to examine a change in the plans. The instruction does not make clear whether it is petitioners or landowners, or whether it is a petitioner who is a landowner. It could be a new landowner—perhaps HS2 Ltd itself. We need further and better particulars on that in short order.
In my constituency, farmers will be affected by the taking of more land at Mantle’s wood, which is a piece of ancient woodland. Yesterday, a lot of farmers made the point that the land-take will have an impact on their business and will not leave it in a “strong and viable condition”. We need assurances that HS2 has considered that before instructions are given to the Committee that it should examine the parcels of land in question. One complaint from farmers yesterday around Great Missenden, Little Missenden and the Lee was that in some cases, their land will be taken for compulsory replanting of trees that are not suitable. I would have liked some more information from the Minister about that. As I said, the consultation period that has been announced is terribly short, and I urge him to look again at that.