I will move Amendment 15 in the name of my noble friend Lord Stevenson who, as the Committee has heard, could not be here today and speak to my Amendment 28 which is grouped with it. I declare my interests as chairman of the Woodland Trust, president of a local wildlife trust, vice-president of RSPB and a former chairman of the Government’s wildlife adviser and regulator.
Had my noble friend Lord Stevenson been here I am sure he would have waxed lyrical about gantries and the need for the undertaker to ensure that gantry selection is as sympathetic as possible. I shall not try to emulate what he would have been saying so lyrically.
I will instead focus on my amendment, Amendment 28, which is about ensuring that the nominated undertaker deals with the commitment made that HS2 phase 1 would result in no net loss of biodiversity, and particularly dwell on HS2 Ltd’s approach to the impact of the project on ancient woodland.
As the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, pointed out, HS2 is an extremely important infrastructure project—that is my only Second Reading remark—but ancient woodland is pretty important too. To refresh the Committee’s memory of why, ancient woodland is defined as woodland that has existed since 1600. Some ancient woodlands are tens of thousands of years old and they are an irreplaceable resource of undisturbed soils, biodiversity and community that have existed for many centuries. They are redolent with history as well as biodiversity, and they are irreplaceable, as cathedrals are irreplaceable—they are the cathedrals of our natural world. Yet, more than 600 of them are currently under threat from development, and we are now down to less than 1% of the land surface of this country, which used to be substantially covered with wild wood, now remaining as our ancient woodland.
The impact of HS2 phase 1 on ancient woodland is considerable. It damages 34 ancient woodlands directly and 29 are further affected by noise, light or construction impact; there is more than 30 hectares of total loss. HS2’s commitment to no net loss of biodiversity is impossible, because any damage to ancient woodland is irreplaceable, so the Select Committee in the other place directed the promoter to identify an independent arbiter to review the methodology for assessing no net loss, and suggested the Government’s nature conservation adviser, Natural England, which has a statutory role in that respect. Natural England did the review and submitted its report at the end of July. Unfortunately, ongoing discussions with the Department for Transport meant that it was not published until 9 November, which did not leave the Lords Select Committee much time in which to consider it.
The Natural England review had three key conclusions. The first is that ancient woodland is indeed irreplaceable and that the ancient woodland calculation should be taken out of the metric on no net loss. I would applaud that.
Secondly, where loss of ancient woodland is unavoidable, the terms of compensation should be 30 hectares of new woodland created for each hectare lost. That is in line with Defra’s draft biodiversity off-setting metric, which was developed in 2012. That sounds like a huge scale, but it is necessary due to the irreplaceability of ancient woodland. These are hugely rich areas, with their complex networks of biodiversity both above and below the soil level. Providing brand-new wood, which will be thin on biodiversity, not have those complex networks and take decades—centuries even—to come to a respectable level, means that you must provide an awful lot more that you have destroyed to be in even remotely the same ballpark for compensation.
Natural England was absolutely right to have that high ambition, based on the evidence which it had used to help Defra deliver its original off-setting metric in 2012. Apart from that, it would be apposite for HS2
to provide a positive legacy for the natural environment communities along the route. Alas, the current compensation ratio proposed by the promoter is less than five hectares for every hectare destroyed.
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The third recommendation from the Natural England report and review was that compensation planting should be not just within the line of route but enabled to be outside the limits of the corridor designated by the Bill. This is partly to avoid a wood that would be 10 meters wide and 140 miles long, but it would also help to reduce the pressure on land around the route, which landowners are already feeling quite severely, by allowing through voluntary agreements—which have been demonstrated to be possible—the creation of more effective groupings of woods across a broader part of the landscape over a wider area. This would ensure that woods are connected to each other and that they show enough scale and scope to be resilient for the future, and, indeed, to deliver best value for money. I am delighted that the Country Land and Business Association, which expressed worries about the pressures on land within that corridor, would welcome such an approach, which would take pressure of land immediately adjacent to the line, provide more flexibility, and reduce the impact on landowners worried about their most sensitive land.
I was dismayed when your Lordships’ Select Committee dismissed the compensation proposals outlined in the Natural England review as not being evidence based. The report had 71 pages, was based on the best evidence available, had considerable expert input, and contained six pages of reference to other sources. I urge the Minister to seriously consider the complex work done by Natural England, which is ultimately the Government’s own nature conservation adviser and made up of experts in the field. I very much look forward to the Government’s response to its report, which I hope we will see before Report, and I thank the Minister for his offer on a discussion of that response beforehand.
The Government have a commitment to halting the overall loss in biodiversity by 2020 and to being the first Government for a very long time, if not forever, to hand on the natural environment in a better condition than they received it. I welcome those two commitments and in the light of them would like to ask the Minister three things: first, for a thoughtful response to the Natural England review that takes full account of the fact that it is the most expert body and the Government’s statutory adviser; secondly, to accept Amendment 28, which requires the undertaker to take account of the Natural England report and indeed to take its advice throughout the construction of the railway; and thirdly, to ensure that the lessons that have been learned from the way ancient woodland protection has been dealt with in phase 1 be taken on board effectively for phase 2. I beg to move.