I think that will happen. Once this project is on its way, it will be easy to say that this would delay it or that would cost more. Presumably, it will be very easy for HS2 to say that almost any environmental mitigation could cause delays to the project and add to the cost, and therefore that it is not reasonably practical to implement it.
I have looked at the complaints process. It cannot be sensible or practical to have a complaints process that ends up with the Speaker of the House as the adjudicator of last resort for dispute resolution in relation to the construction of HS2 and, most importantly, the implementation of environmental mitigation. I do not want to be fobbed off by the Minister with reassurances that the Department for Transport has covered it all with the construction commissioner, because we can be very sure that it has not. We owe the people burdened with this project, and the communities that are being destroyed, that extra level of scrutiny and protection, and somebody who they can turn to immediately.
My remaining new clauses concern the tunnels and the look of this project in my constituency. I will summarise those points briefly because many people want to speak. It is not fair to say that my constituency has not been protected at all by additional tunnelling. As the Minister said in his opening remarks—I am told I am to be very grateful—there will now be a tunnel for two thirds of my constituency. My constituents are grateful for that, but 8.8 km of the route through the area of outstanding natural beauty is outside the tunnel. When we are doing such brilliant tunnelling with Crossrail 2, and when we know that tunnelling expertise in this country leads the world, why are we not using that to tunnel under a nationally protected piece of the environment? I have tabled these new clauses to remind the Minister that we will not give up on this issue at any stage, and I hope that the House of Lords will also give it due consideration.
I have tabled an amendment on traffic, which is important because the traffic assessments from HS2 have been atrocious. I have also tabled amendments on pylons, and the possibility that we will be able to take the opportunity offered by HS2’s construction phase to ensure that if pylons are above ground, they are designed to fit in with the countryside, but that if possible they could be placed underground.
I see that you are getting anxious, Madam Deputy Speaker, as am I, because the Government have not given us enough time to do justice to these new clauses. I am sorry that I have not been able to deploy all my arguments, but in the interest of allowing others to speak, and knowing that time has been taken out of this debate by the Opposition’s forcing a vote on something that is not relevant to now or to my constituents, I will let others speak.