My Lords, my colleagues will know that I am a very strong supporter of this imaginative and important project. I proposed this new clause to highlight the unfairness of the compulsory purchase compensation code, which does not provide an adequate means of addressing the very real and present unfairness and inadequacies concerning the lack of access to compensation or suitable redress, in particular for small and medium-sized businesses greatly
affected by the extent and duration of public works—in this case, phase 1 of the HS2 project as set out in the Bill—but which do not necessarily have any property interests. I believe it should be the promoter’s objective that no business is financially disadvantaged by significant loss of income or business as a direct result of the severity of impacts arising from construction activity.
I take this opportunity to say how strongly I believe, in the absence of such adequate compensation generally, that the promoter, in pursuit of fairness, should either agree a regime of compensation for the reimbursement of business and consequential losses in special cases where construction impacts are likely to be most severe, or accept a protective provision in the Bill for special cases.
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