My Lords, Amendment 18, standing in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, is to do with traffic and transport issues during the construction of phase 1. It came from a conversation I had with people at the West Midlands transport authority—I think that is the right name; it has just been changed—who expressed concern that the Bill could allow HS2 to restrict the flows on motorways or national rail services as it felt necessary without any consideration for the needs of other rail travellers or drivers on the motorway and local roads. They felt that the consultation had been not that comprehensive to start off with and they were really quite worried about this issue, which they say could cause major trouble and problems for traffic on rail and road during the construction. It seems that Camden Council has similar worries and I think that TfL probably does, too. Their solution was to propose this idea of a regional integrated command centre. I do not know
whether that is the right term. It is not a sort of Army command centre but a co-ordination body to bring all the bodies which I have listed, including,
“Highways England, local highways authorities, emergency services”—
the transport authorities local and regional—
“transport operators and the nominated undertaker’s contractors”,
and probably a few more, together on a regular basis to plan what is going on and minimise the adverse effect of traffic and transport on the users.
We can debate whether there should be one centre covering the whole route or several. The amendment I have tabled says that there should be one but that is for discussion. This is one of those things which, if it does not happen, probably would happen several years on when there had been a crisis or disaster. My suggestion is that it should be set up from the beginning, whether that takes three months or six months or whatever. I hope that it would be funded by HS2; after all, they are the people causing the problem. I think this would be welcomed by all the different users and could be a major benefit to the communities along the route and the longer-distance travellers, who would see all the obvious problems which come with construction mitigated to some extent. I look forward to some interesting comments and debate on this proposal, which would be extremely cheap to run and very beneficial. I beg to move.