I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I begin with the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and supported by my noble friend Lady Pidding. I immediately declare an interest. My full title is Lady Buscombe, of Goring. Therefore, the reference the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, made to gantries affects me directly and is one of the reasons why I was very keen to speak to the amendment on behalf of the Government.
As the noble Lord said, we are dealing with an engineering issue that is largely based on safety. While I completely empathise with my noble friend, the number of gantries needed is based on a strict engineering and operational specification. Most of my friends and neighbours in Goring have come to terms with this now, because the reality is that if you have too much distance between each gantry there would be a slack of the line, which can be whipped up by the wind, as the noble Lord said. There would therefore be a genuine safety issue. That is something we have sought to take on board. Any variation in this specification would introduce reliability issues on the railway.
The ability to reduce the number of the gantries is therefore limited. However, the project is committed to mitigating the visual impacts of the railway through, for example, providing screen planting along parts of the railway to help obscure the overhead line equipment where it is likely to cause a significant visual effect. The phase 1 route has been developed specifically to minimise its impact on landscape and visual amenity, and, where possible, to make a positive contribution to it. This includes the decision to keep the railway as low in the landscape as is reasonably practicable. That is something we did not achieve with Network Rail through the AONB known as the Goring Gap. This is a huge step forward in mitigating the sight of the gantries. The use of earthworks and tree planting will help integrate the railway into the landscape and obscure features such as gantries. I hope what I said will reassure my noble friend such that the proposed amendment is unnecessary. I therefore hope that it will be withdrawn.
With respect to Amendment 28, proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and supported by other noble Lords, I very much empathise with what she said, but I hope that I can persuade her that this amendment, too, is inappropriate, as it seeks to impose a requirement whose merits were fully examined and rejected by the Lords Select Committee. As noble Lords are aware, toward the end of last year, Natural England produced a report, referenced this evening, that reviewed the Government’s proposed metric to achieve no net loss of biodiversity. The primary recommendation of that report, which was markedly different from its previous standing advice, is that where new woodland planting is used to compensate for ancient woodland losses, 30 hectares should be planted for each hectare lost, as the noble Baroness said.
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However, the Lords Select Committee considered this issue and ultimately did not agree with the conclusions of the report. Let me explain why. The Select Committee noted in its report that it was,
“not persuaded by Natural England’s opinion … to create new woodland on the scale of 30:1”.
The Select Committee went on to note:
“Having emphasised … that changes should be evidence-based, the report seems to have plucked this figure out of the air”.
Indeed, Natural England itself accepts that there is very little evidence to support this ratio. It is for this reason that the Government did not accept the recommendation. Providing 30 hectares of new woodland planting for each hectare lost would be the equivalent of providing approximately 45 football pitches for every hectare of ancient woodland lost—an immense amount of additional land take. We have moved past the stage where we can add in additional land requirements to the Bill and we must be mindful of this project’s objective to minimise, wherever practicable, the total amount of land take.
We will be providing over 5 hectares of woodland for every 1 hectare of ancient woodland we have to take. Overall, we will be planting more than 650 hectares of new woodland between London and Birmingham as part of the first phase of HS2. The Government
have also established an additional £5 million fund to create new native broadleaf woodland and enhance existing ancient woodland. This is on top of the package of compensation for ancient woodland lost during construction measures already in place. As part of the fund, £1 million has already been made available to the Forestry Commission to support projects that will help restore, enhance and extend ancient woodland on private land or in partnership with multiple landowners. This could support projects similar to the restoration of Chalkney Wood in Essex, which has successfully removed all the conifers from an ancient woodland to restore it to native species.
We have also recently awarded a contract to Crowders Nurseries in Horncastle, Lincolnshire, to grow and provide HS2 with 7 million trees and shrubs. I hope noble Lords will agree this is great news for a UK family-run business and for the people of Lincolnshire, as Crowders also aims to create 13 new apprenticeships over the duration of its 10-year contract, giving a skills boost to its workforce and providing new opportunities for people looking to develop their careers within the horticulture industry. This is an important example of the wide benefits that HS2 will bring, beyond the simple—albeit extremely important and, we believe, crucial—benefits on the line of route.
HS2 is doing more than any other major project to protect the environment and leave as little trace as possible. The new woodland will be managed for up to 50 years so that the trees are protected and communities will be able to enjoy it for hundreds of years to come. For all those reasons, I hope your Lordships will agree with me that this amendment is inappropriate and unnecessary and should be withdrawn.