Public Session

PUBLIC SESSION

MINUTES OF ORAL EVIDENCE

taken before

HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE

On the

HIGH SPEED RAIL (LONDON – WEST MIDLANDS) BILL

Tuesday, 3 March 2015 (Morning)

In Committee Room 5

PRESENT:

Mr Robert Syms (Chair) Mr Henry Bellingham Sir Peter Bottomley Ian Mearns Mr Michael Thornton Yasmin Qureshi

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IN ATTENDANCE:

Mr James Strachan QC, Counsel, Department for Transport

Witnesses:

Mr Ian Raybould, Headmaster, Yarlet School Nick Tarling, Governor, Yarlet School Mr Roger Broadbent and Mrs Gillian Broadbent Jeremy Lefroy MP Mr David Cook Mr Steven Smith Mr Duncan Mackenzie, Polesworth School

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IN PUBLIC SESSION

INDEX

Subject Page

Yarlet School Submissions from Mr Tarling 3 Submissions from Mr Raybould 4 Response by Mr Strachan 11

Roger and Gillian Broadbent Submissions from Mrs Broadbent 15 Submissions from Mr Broadbent 21 Response by Mr Strachan 27

Jeremy Lefroy MP Submissions from Mr Lefroy 30 Response by Mr Strachan 34 Further submissions from Mr Lefroy 36

David Cook, Steven Smith and Andrew Wilkinson Submissions from Mr Cook 38 Submissions from Mr Smith 45 Questions from the Committee 55

Mr Duncan Mackenzie Submissions from Mr Mackenzie 57 Response by Mr Strachan 66 Closing submissions from Mr Mackenzie 68

(At 09.30)

1. CHAIR: Order, order. Welcome, good morning everybody to the HS2 Select Committee. We start today with Yarlet School.

Yarlet School

2. CHAIR: It is up on the map. Who is going to kick off for the school, you, Mr Tarling?

3. MR TARLING: Yes.

4. CHAIR: Please carry on.

5. MR TARLING: Mr Chairman, thank you first of all very much for allowing us to address you this morning. Can I take it that the members of the Committee have had a chance to look at the statement we provided rather than repeat ourselves. As we have said, I am a governor of the school. Mr Raybould here is the headmaster, so he is more interesting to listen to than me. Just by way of introduction I have mentioned that this is a school which has been on this site for 142 years. It is one of the oldest private schools in the country and is on the same site that it has always been on. So, clearly, this is a very serious matter that we are facing, quite obviously, which is why we are here.

6. We propose, Mr Chairman, with your agreement, to deal with the three points you mention in your statement that you put round recently: access, blight and compensation. If I may, I will start the ball rolling and then the headmaster will speak in more detail as to the access impact on the school.

7. We have right beside us, as you can see from the plan that is on the screen, the A34, which is a busy road. That is the only access onto the campus. I wonder if I could ask, please, for a photograph to be put up so that you can see the campus. That is exhibit 6, 9916. There you see the campus. It is an aerial photograph taken from the s ite. The A34 is in the trees running to the left of the picture, from north to south. It is a dual carriageway. That is an important point that will come up later.

8. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Is that road on this picture?

9. MR TARLING: No, it is just to the left. It runs through those trees, north to

south, slightly at an angle to this photograph but the main entrance to the school, and the only entrance, I should say, is approximately in the middle of the left-hand side of this photograph. I can show a plan in a moment which will show you the exact site but we thought that you would like to get a feel of the site. The proposed railway line would be running laterally across.

10. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: If you put your finger on the screen, it will, by magic, turn up.

11. MR TARLING: We hope. The line of the railway is just below this line. We will show that in a moment. The line of the road under which the railway will need to pass goes up to the north/south. That is the totality of the campus that you are looking at in this photograph. Would it be helpful if we then pass to exhibit 9197, which will show the road. There you have the road and the campus again. My apologies for the rather small, handwritten descriptions of the various facilities which Mr Raybould will be touching on but an important point is that the entrance to the school, if that could be highlighted, is where I am pointing. That is the entrance and, as you can see, the A34 is the only access.

12. As regards the distance from the railway line I think at this point it would be helpful if we could have exhibit 9198. The difficulty with this, as you will have appreciated from other presentations, is that it is very small scale. Yarlet lies to the top le ft. You see that there is a cutting and one of the problems with this is that it actually faces south. But if we turn it upside to look at the picture we were looking at before, the school lies there. There is the site of the campus. You can see the enormous proposed cutting. The figures at the bottom of this plan do specify that the proposed railway would go underneath the A34 as designed to a depth of 16.4 metres. What is proposed here and obviously gives us great difficulty is a cutting which because of the depth would need to be very wide indeed. The edge of the cutting would measure a mere 75 metres from the edge of the ca mp us. If I may, Mr C hairman, if you do not have questions of me, I shall invite Mr Raybould to explain in more detail the concern we have.

13. CHAIR: Thank you.

14. MR RAYBOULD: I would just like to confirm initially that Yarlet School is a

boarding prep school with 160 pupils aged between two and 13. I will be making reference to clause 51 which deals with access to the right of entry to the site within 500 metres, and paragraph 7 of our petition, which deals with our concerns about the health, safety and welfare of pupils.

15. Could we have exhibit A9194, please? I mention that the clause gives the right of access 500 metres from the line. The area highlighted in green is the boundary of the school. The proposed line is more or less here. The 500 metre boundary is the line marked here. As you see, that really includes the entire Yarlet School campus, so I have huge concerns with regard to access.

16. I shall refer to some regulations now that I have a legal obligation to meet. The Education (Independent School S tandards) (England) Regulations 2010 Part 3 and Standards 6 and 7 of the National Minimum Standards for Boarding Schools 2013 require me to keep children safe. As an active independent schools inspector, and as the school’s designated lead for child protection I am particularly conscious of this responsibility. Should the project go ahead as proposed I have two key concerns about children’s safety. The first is that I do not see how I can keep children safe if unidentified people who have not been vetted by the school have the right to access our campus when children are present. The second is that it will be difficult to keep children safe if there is an increase in traffic on the campus. At the moment, vehicles are only permitted on the campus under exceptional circumstances and all parents and staff park in a car park which is off the campus.

17. I think it is worth mentioning at this stage the ethos of the school. The first thing you will see if you enter Yarlet School is a large sign just on the entrance to the A34 saying, ‘Free range children. Slo w’. Then that sign is repeated a few metres into the campus, again, ‘Free range children. Slo w’. Next to that sign is, ‘No unauthorised vehicles beyond this point’ and an arrow to the car park where everyone must park unless there are exceptional circumstances like deliveries, for example.

18. Free range children is a big thing for us. We are in a beautiful area of the Staffordshire countryside. There are no gates, fences, CCTV cameras or teachers with whis tles with children caged in a fenced-off area. Our children have a lot of freedom and can be found anywhere on the campus at any time really because a lot of our

educational activities take place outdoors and we make very good use of our grounds. So, I think my concerns are heightened because of that. I think in a different school concerns might not be as severe.

19. There is a further point regarding access, which I referred to in paragraph 8.4 of our petition. This concerns the disruption which families would experience on the A34. The A34, as Mr Tarling has already mentioned, provides the only access to the school and when it is congested it causes a major inconvenience to our parents. We feel that any school whose sole access were put into jeopardy would find it hard to survive and any disruption to that, any serious disruption to the A34, would be a threat therefore to our future. Our parents and prospective parents would simply not tolerate extended disruption of the A34 and would look elsewhere if they felt they could avoid traffic problems by moving to another school.

20. I should highlight another significant point. As matters stand, you can only enter or leave the school by means of the southbound carriageway. Perhaps I can just explain that. The entrance and exit to the school is essentially a T-junction on to a dual carriageway which has a physical barrier in the central reservation, so you have to turn south even if your destination is northbound. You have to turn southbound until you are able to make a U-turn so all traffic, whether entering or exiting Yarlet, moves in a southbound direction and crosses the proposed route.

21. Another point is that because pupils stay at the school for up to 11 years – it is a two to 13 school; the children are there a long time – I feel it is important to note that were the plan to start work as soon as the mid-2020s it would have a serious adverse effect on current as well as prospective parents because there are children at the school now who may be affected. I just wanted to clarify whether I am correct in thinking that there is the possibility of the Fradley to Crewe stretch beginning earlier into the mid- 2020s? That would be interesting to clarify. For the moment they are the key points I want to make about access.

22. MR MEARNS: Can I ask, Mr Raybould, what is the distribution of your children between boarding children and day children?

23. MR RAYBOULD: We actually have flexi-boarding arrangements so it is very difficult to say. Every child from the age of seven upwards is a potential boarder and

the vast majority of our pupils will board at least once during their time at the school. Typically we would have between 20 and 30 boarders but it might not be the same group of children each time.

24. MR MEARNS: So, out of a pupil population of around 130, about 100 are day pupils on an average day?

25. MR RAYBOULD: Yes. Boarding is not available to all pupils because we can only board in the area of the school which we call main school. We are talking of about 20 to 25 per cent of the school who would board who are eligible to board.

26. MR BELLINGHAM: I have not had a chance to look at your website but what is the ethos of the school, and what is your main unique selling point of Yarlet School?

27. MR RAYBOULD: I think that the outdoors is a huge part of what we do. The first thing that greets you as you enter Yarlet is the cricket pavilion, the big cricket ground, two big sports fields, an area of woodland where we carry out lots of conservation work, and things like mini-beast hotels, hedgehog homes and things like that.

28. MR BELLINGHAM: Do the children get involved with the farm as well? Can they get involved with that sort of activity?

29. MR RAYBOULD: We have not been able to establish that, unfortunately, because of health and safety concerns on behalf of the farmer but certainly we have a wildlife pool. In fact next week Staffordshire Wildlife Trust have a project with our pupils down at the wildlife pool. It is a very outdoor school. It is the kind of school where we have games every day between 3.30 and 4.30 and even in poor weather our children will be doing cross-country runs outdoors rather than being cooped up inside. It is a very important part of the ethos that we are out in sport, in physical activities, science investigations and ecology work and so on.

30. CHAIR: Thank you.

31. MR TARLING: Perhaps I may say a few words at this point. I think that Mr Raybould was going to lead into the issue of blight and as we have mentioned it is one of the topics we will touch on. Quite clearly there is a deep concern to the school

that there is this possibility – we accept that it is initially the present preferred route and it could change – but so long as it is the present preferred route we do want to look at ways of reducing the blight because that is a fear that we have. Mr Raybould has touched on the fact that it is not very far away now and there are children in the school now who will still be in the school in 12 years’ time. That obviously indicates a possibility that this work could begin over that period.

32. This is a major point that we want to raise, Mr Chairman. If we can come back to exhibit 8 again, please, I am looking here, if I may remind the Committee, at the top left. Can we magnify it? That is very helpful. Can it be further magnified or is that as far as it can go? Thank you. If you can see there this huge cutting, it is going under, as I said earlier, the A34.

33. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: You are in a hilly part of the country aren’t you?

34. MR TARLING: Yes, that will be to a depth of 16.4 metres. It follows from that, as I say, that the nature of the embankment would reach, as we have said earlier, to within 75 metres of the campus, and not only that but at a very vulnerable part of the ca mp us. The swimming pool, as you saw from the earlier photograph, is right in the front by our hard school fields, which are used for recreation. If you look closely, there is a woodland there. That is quite a sizeable wood, which we had hoped would remain a screen. It is about two and a half to three acres in size. It is on the crown of a hill and as Sir Peter has just alluded, it is surrounded by hillsides falling away on all sides. We therefore very strongly urge, and we have taken advice from engineers, that a tunnel be contemplated rather than this nature of disruptive cutting. If we could just call up exhibit A9195, please, that is our thought of a possible route for a tunnel and what I have tried to show here. You will see right in the middle of the picture, ‘The Grove’ and Yarlet to your left. That is the wood. I am afraid that in this picture you cannot see the precise woodland but that is the area of the wood. The contours which are marked you can see near to where we have suggested, at the entrance to the tunnel. We are talking about an altitude of approximately 120 to 125 metres. It rises to 140 metres and similarly, the other side of the A34. So, we are talking about a rise of the order of 20 metres in the contours so that there is, we are advised, a very possible route there for a tunnel, which would have the added advantage of protecting this wood which is not an SSSI but it is a wood which is not being used for farming or for any other purpose and is

full of wildlife. It is also a very significant screen, or would be, for the school and anybody north of the site from these works. So, we do feel that this is something that HS2 should be invited to give serious thought to.

35. That would, coming back to this, significantly reduce our blight concerns because of the nature of the construction, which is by far our greatest concern in this context and the disruption it would cause, as we have said, would be very significantly reduced.

36. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: If it were a bored tunnel rather than a cut and cover tunnel?

37. MR TARLING: We naturally said we would prefer a bored tunnel as we have suggested. A cut and cover tunnel would also be better than a cutting.

38. MR RAYBOULD: I would like to just reiterate some of the points and perhaps add a little more detail. I think it can be reasonably expected that the construction process will cause excessive noise and dust and, given the close proximity of many of our facilities, including the outdoor swimming poor as Nick mentioned, the field on the southern border of the campus, the art block and gardens, there would be concerns from me about using them safely. Perhaps if we get A9193 on the screen, you can see there in the table some of the school facilities and the distance from the track. To name a few activities which take place on the southerly end of the campus, there are swimming lessons every day during the summer term and again I reiterate in an outdoor swimming pool. There are art lessons every day in the art block and, because of our ethos of the outdoors, art lessons on the southerly field regularly, especially during the summer term, so we like to get our art students outside drawing, sketching and painting. O ur nursery children, again in relation to our ethos, every single day have a nature walk around the whole campus. Even through the winter months they get wrapped up, put on their scarves and wellies and they are out and about. There are regular cross-country runs. There are gardening clubs and so on. I have not listed everything but there are lots of activities going on in that area.

39. With regard to the effects of the dust, I would like it to be noted that four of our children at the moment, including some boarders, are diagnosed with asthma and are particularly sensitive to dust. With regard to noise, it does affect children’s concentration in class, especially those who are on our special educational needs register

with specific difficulties with concentration. The last time I reviewed the special educational needs register, 15 of the children on the list did suffer from the ability to concentrate in lessons. Any noise, a background noise, even a low level noise, can be very distracting for those children.

40. It should also be noted that the art complex, which you can see from the list there is very close, the art school. In that same complex slightly further away but all part of the same building and complex, is the design and technology workshop, the humanities classrooms, science classrooms, mathematics classrooms and then a short distance away the French classroom, and ITT suite and then in a similar area the school chapel, which is used every morning. So, my concerns are very real about many children for lots of different reasons, many of the reasons that they are needing to be outdoors and are using that area every day.

41. CHAIR: Thank you. Any more points before we go to the promoter?

42. MR TARLING: Finally, very briefly what we have been saying is that on compensation we are as concerned. We have looked at Clause 52(5) which others have commented on. What we are looking at here unless changes are made, which we very much hope they will be, is a huge issue of the survival of the school and the threat to its goodwill, as you will have gathered from what we have sought to put to you, is very serious.

43. CHAIR: Okay.

44. MR MEARNS: Is the school full in terms of pupils?

45. MR RAYBOULD: It is 160, as I mentioned. I would say that our maximum capacity is around 180, so not quite full but healthy numbers.

46. MR BELLINGHAM: Are the SEN children on statements? Are they all mildly on the spectrum?

47. MR MEARNS: There is no such thing anymore, Henry.

48. MR BELLINGHAM: Is there not? What is it called now?

49. MR MEARNS: It is about educational health and social care.

50. MR BELLINGHAM: Right, I am out of date.

51. MR RAYBOULD: It is a very similar process. We have two children at the moment who have been assessed for one of those plans. The rest of our children are just on our register because they have additional needs, some with official educational psychologist diagnoses, other children who we have just identified as finding some things more difficult than most children.

52. MR BELLINGHAM: Thank you.

53. CHAIR: Okay, thank you, gentlemen. Mr Strachan?

54. MR STRACHAN (DfT): I think the promoter made its position clear last week that in relation to the details of Phase 2, it is not our intention to respond to that for two reasons. First of all we are not promoting a Bill for Phase 2 and it is not before the Committee, and secondly there has been consultation on Phase 2 but there has been no announcement. So, the sorts of points that have just been made about Phase 2 are no doubt points that the school probably has already made or may wish to make in relation to P hase 2 and its details, but it is not appropriate or necessary for me to respond. I just make that plain because I am not doing that out of disrespect to the points that have been made; I am just focusing on what is before the Committee.

55. The point that was raised which relates to this Bill is clauses 51 and 52, which are the rights of entry, which is just coming on the screen. The concern I think in a nutshell that was expressed was about identifying potentially unidentifiable people having access to the school in circumstances where the security of the school is important. In fac t, o f course, clause 51, as the Committee heard me say yesterday, and I apologise for any repetition, builds into it specific safeguards as to the exercise of those powers. It has to be an authorised person, authorisation given by the Secretary of State, and, just at the bottom of the page, 51(3)(a) the entry has to be genuinely needed and, more importantly in this context, (b), ‘all reasonable attempts have been made to obtain consent to enter the la nd ’, as I explained previously. Therefore, there is no prospect of entry occurring without dialogue with the school first to arrange suitable access times, no doubt perhaps during the school holiday if there is an issue about taking access during school time.

56. Perhaps I can just show you clause 52 because it is important that people are

aware of these things. There is not the prospect of unidentified people taking access under these provisions. You will see at 52(3), ‘A person authorised under Section 51 to enter any land must, if so required, produce evidence of the authorisation and state the purpose of entry before entering, may not demand admission as with any right to land which is occupied unless 14 days’ notice is given, and must comply with any other conditions subject to which the authorisation is given’. So, there is scope to impose additional conditions where necessary and appropriate for more sensitive locations where either the Justice of the Peace or, in this case, the Secretary of State sees fit. So, the concern that is raised about this Bill to this school is fully catered for by this power. I emphasise, as I did yesterday, that this power is a backstop power if the negotiations have not yielded, which they will in most cases, I assume, a sensible arrangement to cater for all the concerns.

57. CHAIR: In the course of our deliberations, if this school were in Warwickshire, the approach of the project would be to work with them to resolve the concerns that they would have. I am presuming, therefore, that if at the point that the route for Phase 2 is determined and there is a Second Reading of a Bill at another Committee sitting maybe in this very room at some stage in the future, the approach of HS2 would still be to work with this particular school to resolve the concerns which they have put on record today.

58. MR STRACHAN (DfT): That is absolutely the case. There have been examples before this Committee where schools and other buildings or sensitive businesses have been the subject of such discussions and potential changes where they are possible.

59. CHAIR: And given that some of the people working for the project today might even be working for the project in Phase 2, the fact that it is now on the record and they have made their concerns clear does not preclude the project talking to them once the route is determined to see if these things can be resolved before we get any further down the line?

60. MR STRACHAN (DfT): Undoubtedly that would be the aspiration to resolve these sorts of issues if they prove to be issues because I do not know what the route is.

61. CHAIR: There is nodding behind you anyway.

62. MR STRACHAN (DfT): Yes, absolutely. That is absolutely the aspiration. O f

course, the experience from P hase 1 will no doubt be invaluable in relation to Phase 2 in that respect.

63. CHAIR: Okay.

64. MR THORN TON: Mr Strachan, can I emphasise the fact that I do not think that the promoters would treat a school for children in the same way as they would treat another sort of business; you would look at it in a different way and take note of the fact that we are looking at small children, very young children, some of them, in a vulnerable setting.

65. MR STRACHAN (DfT): Absolutely. That is critical, to look at the specifics. I was in part referring to other sensitive businesses or premises, but yes, absolutely.

66. MR RAYBO ULD: Would I perhaps be allowed to make a further point?

67. CHAIR: Yes.

68. MR RAYBOULD: Having listened carefully to that, obviously the school would be very willing and keen to discuss how we can keep children safe. I just have grave reservations on how we might achieve that when I am aware of the regulations and standards which I mentioned earlier and know what they incorporate in great detail.

69. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We have the point and you can be reassured that anybody would only come on to the school land first of all if they needed to and secondly if they asked you, and thirdly if you unreasonably said, ‘no’, they could then get the Secretary of State or somebody else to say that they have a warrant to do it. It is not going to happen; don’t worry.

70. MR RAYBOULD: No, but with respect, as I say I do not have the authority to give permission to someone, for example, who is not vetted.

71. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Forgive me, it is not going to be a worry for you. You have put the point on the record. It is accepted.

72. MR THORNTON: And you will be able to come to our successive committee when there is an actual route taken up.

73. CHAIR: I think the answer to the issue raised is that the route has not yet been safeguarded for Phase 2. Sir David Higgins has suggested going to Crewe, which may or may not be subject to a separate Bill. If the Government adopt that, and the Government have not yet adopted that, but if they do and that becomes a separate Bill, I suspect it will follow on behind this Bill fairly quickly, in which case some of your issues will be resolved sooner than some of the people nearer to Cheshire, Manchester and Leeds. So, I think it is more of a question of watch this space, but the general approach, and we have seen this up and down the line that we dealing with where there are businesses, schools or charities, is to try and work to resolve the issues. Sometimes a compromise is necessary. It is nobody’s intention of putting you out of business if you have been going for 140 years.

74. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And your good MP, Jeremy Lefroy, I am sure will look after you as well.

75. MR RAYBO ULD: Thank you.

76. MR TARLING: Mr Chairman, I do not want to detain the Committee but is the answer to Mr Raybould’s question about timing that were the Fradley/Crewe stretch to be accelerated, it is possible – I put it no more strongly – that construction work could begin in the mid-2020s?

77. CHAIR: Anything is po ss ib le.

78. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Yes. Whether or not it is likely we cannot determine now.

79. MR THORNTON: Bear in mind that we are sitting probably for another year and then it has to go to the House of Lords and then another Committee, and that is just for the first stage of the Bill. So, just to finish the legislative process is a way to go.

80. CHAIR: If P hase 1 is on schedule it will be the middle 2020s for opening and therefore construction from 2017, 2018 onwards. Any successor Bill to that you can probably put two or three years’ behind. So, we are probably going to be retired by then.

81. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: You have six years before you have to put in your

brochure that there will be a daily engineering walk around the school to see how a railway is built.

82. MR TARLING: Sir Peter, brochures do not happen anymor e. People just look at the press and quite honestly there are notices all over Staffordshire as I am sure you have heard.

83. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Yes.

84. MR TARLING: This is already a looming threat in people’s minds. That is our point. Lastly, sir, if I may, there was a previous so-called preferred route which proposed to cross our playing fields on the north side of the campus straight across. This is not, I realise, the place to comment on that in detail other than to say that that is even more awful because it wouldn’t even be logical to build a tunnel because that end of the campus is flat and the railway would have to go straight across the middle of it unless they dig down deeply, which is clearly not possible. So, just for the record, that horrified us even more.

85. CHAIR: Essentially, there are conversations which will take place about Phase 2 and it may move again in parts of the line. Until the route is determined definitively for what is going to go in the Second Reading Bill – indeed the route that we are dealing with has already had one or two changes and there will be additional provisions – who knows, you might get lucky and it might move away and make life a bit easier, or it might demolish the whole school, and that makes life easier in some respects.

86. MR TARLING: Well, that would be awful. Thank you very much.

87. CHAIR: Thank you very much, gentlemen. Nice to see you and thank you for putting your concerns on the record.

Roger and Gillian Broadbent

88. CHAIR: Good morning.

89. MRS BROADBENT: Good morning. I am Gill Broadbent, but both Roger and I will be speaking this morning as a joint effort as we have done for the past 47 years.

90. CHAIR: Okay.

91. MRS BROADBENT: We would like to take this opportunity of thanking you for inviting us along to present our concerns and those of some of our neighbours as well, although not officially.

92. Just to give you a bit of background to Ingestre, the village that we live in, I think that might be helpful to set the scene. Ingestre and Tixall are actually two very small Staffordshire villages. We have about 194 residents and Tixall have 241, so they are very tiny. In other circumstances they would be called hamlets, but of course we do have two churches.

93. Ingestre is a conservation area and Tixall is in the area of outstanding beauty of Cannock Chase. If you look at the original map and the position of our house you can see that we are roughly 600 metres away from the line and around us there are just small clusters of houses. That is because it has been a farming area for so many years. If you also look again at the map you can see that the River Trent runs through, very close to us and we also have Ingestre’s water meadows. That is why it is called Ingestre, because we are the ‘ing’ for the River Trent, so Ingestre is where its name came from.

94. Public transport is very, very limited and most of the villages from Ingestre have to rely on being able to drive. Neither village has any facilities whatsoever, no post office, shop, pub or anything else. Bus services are dreadful. They start at about nine o’clock and finish at five o’clock and they are on an hourly service. We would have over a two mile walk to a bus. So, that is why Ingestre residents are far more isolated and can only visit Ingestre’s village hall because it is located in Tixall. So, if we want to go to Tixall to have an event, we either have to drive ourselves there or else we have to run the risk of going down our lane – there is only one road in and out of Ingestre, no footpaths – and then the other lane is exactly the same as well. So, it is very, very isolated.

95. Could we have slide A924, please? Ingestre Hall is the hidden gem of Staffordshire, mainly because it was hidden from view because it was in the hands of the same landowner for about 1000 years. The names of the owners changed as ladie s inherited but it ended up in the hands of the Earls of Shrewsbury. So, we have records of the village that go back to the Domesday Book up until 1960 when the estate was sold by the Earl of S hrewsbury. We also have evidence of a Bronze Age settlement

there as well, which are two polished bronze axes. So, it has been around for a very, very long time.

96. Ingestre Hall itself was built in 1613 so it has been standing for a long time. It was destroyed at one point by a fire but it is restored and it is absolutely fabulous. When the Earl sold the grounds, the grounds and the hall itself were sold to West Bromwich, partly because it was in Staffordshire at the time. It is not now. It isn’t now; it is actually owned by Sandwell and it is used as a residential arts centre for children. It is the only residential arts centre in England that is left remaining in the hands of a public body. We use it in more recent times for our own uses as well, but I will tell you a little more about that later. It is a stunningly wonderful place to live, and you can imagine how we feel.

97. Could I have the next slide, please? Ingestre Hall is a Grade II* listed building. St Mary’s Church is a Grade I principally because it is the only remaining church that was designed by Sir Christopher Wren that is outside London and it is really stunning. I know that it has more of the original features left in it than many of the churches in London that he designed. It was built by Walter Chetwynd in 1676. He was a Member of Parliament too for Staffordshire, but he had a friend who he was at university with and he happened to be C hristopher Wren and that is how the two got together. It is a bit like nowadays. If you have any difficulties you go to your best friend, don’t you? Wa lte r, who sadly lost his wife, went to Christopher who said, ‘Come on, mate, design me a church to commemorate my wife’s death’. It also was built not far away from the old 13th century church, so inside we have remains of the 13th century church as well.

98. You can imagine the consternation of the villagers when in 2000 they discovered death watch beetle. The vicar, bless him, had the letter on the Friday. On the Saturday there was a wedding. They had told him to close the church. Well, he didn’t. He took the risk and he opened it on the Saturday for the wedding and then closed it immediately but the villagers were then united and raised almost £700,000 to restore the church. Considering at that time they were a village of only 100 people, they haven’t done too badly.

99. In 2004 they completed that restoration and then they followed on with the restoration of the bell tower as well. I know that one of the bells came down here to

London to be restored. It was the first one to be done after World War II. The church is actually bucking the national trend because it is such a beautiful, tranquil, quiet place in which to worship, to celebrate either births, marriages or deaths it has increased in size considerably. At the same time it has increased in size, the age of the congregation has decreased, so that is getting a better balance.

100. Could we go to the next slide, please? Here we have a sample of three of the other listed buildings in the village. First there is the New Stables. Those were built, and I hate to tell you this, after the fire at the hall. The insurance money was used for the hall but it was also used to build an extra building on the estate, so I don’t know what the people would have said about that, but it is a renowned stables worldwide. Ingestre is infamous throughout the world. We have people coming here from all over.

101. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Famous not infamous.

102. MRS BROADBENT: Sorry, famous. It could well be infamous. It is very fa mo us. It is world famous. Wherever we go, people know about the stables. We have had visitors from Russia. One guy actually drove from Moscow in a vehicle to come and stay at the stables so he could take his dogs to Crufts where he won. It is a wonderful business. There are three businesses there: there are the stables, the riding stables, an architect’s studio and also holiday accommodation too. The old stables were built much earlier than those and were sold during the 1970s after the sale of Ingestre Hall. So, consequently those have all been converted into various homes for people to live in.

103. The Orangery, sadly, is the only building that has not been restored but we have set up a charity to bring about its restoration so that it can be used as a village hall and also so that that village hall can then sustain the building of the orangery.

104. Could we have the next slide, please? Ingestre Hall can be seen from the golf course, which in the picture on the right you can see quite clearly. O n the left you can look down an avenue of trees that the 21st Earl of Shrewsbury planted to celebrate the 21st birthday of his son. So, it is a wonderful place; it is beautiful to live in. But it is not just the buildings that we are concerned about; it is our lives there and the relationships we have with them.

105. Could you put up the next slide, please? This is what we do. In Ingestre we have a whole range of different societies that cover music, drama and dance. We celebrate everybody’s skills and talents. We have a whole range of events that take place there. In 2013 we celebrated the 400th anniversary of the building of Ingestre Hall. It was an ambitious event, to put it mildly. We had an opera, Dido and Aeneas, that ran for three nights; we had a festival day as well. Could you put up the next slide, please? This is just a sample of some of the things we did on the festival day. We are really proud of our heritage so there were guided tours and walks about the place. There was archery going on, bell ringing. We have an andante choir, our local choir. We also had equestrian events, obviously everybody pulling together with all the different societie s from the village. The equestrians dressed up in the costumes from the period and the darker picture on the right is just an example of the theatre industry productions that go on during the summer. So, we might be a small village but we punch above our weight. We have an awful lot going on in the village. It is very active, so don’t for one minute think that everybody is like us; there are a third of us who are over 60 but everybody joins in and we do provide an awful lot of things for the future.

106. Next year we are joining the Capability Brown 300th celebration so that we can develop a walk through our Capability Brown’s land and it really is just wonderful. Ingestre residents are very proud of its long, rich heritage. We love the tranquillity, the beauty, the peace of our surroundings and the lively talented caring community who so generously welcome people from all over the world. Thank you.

107. MR BELLINGHAM: May I just ask a quick question? The house now belong to a trust?

108. MRS BROADBEN T: No, it does not. It is owned by Sandwell Council.

109. MR BELLINGHAM: It is still owned by the council?

110. MRS BROADBEN T: Yes, it is Sandwell Council.

111. MR BELLINGHAM: Yes.

112. MRS BROADBENT: I t is quite complicated. I don’t want to bore you with the details but if you want the details I am more than happy to give them to you. It is

actually in the borough of Stafford, in the county of Staffordshire but it is owned by Sandwell, which used to be in Staffordshire when they were called West Bromwich. So, it is complicated.

113. MR BELLINGHAM: So, there is a committee, basically, that is responsible for overseeing all the activities and encouraging the different societies and clubs that use it?

114. MRS BROADBENT: No, that is the village. The hall operates as an education business in that they do let it out. They use it in term times for functions for school children, so in a year they have 2,500 children visiting there and I have to say that fo r over 50 years we have people coming back to us and now we are doing the festivals on behalf of the hall and you find three generations will come to you and will explain what a fabulous impact this place has had on their lives, and it does. I know my next-door- neighbour’s son used to go there and we encouraged him to take up music. He is now the musical director of Bath Symphony Orchestra. So, it has an impact far and wide but it is owned by Sandwell, yes.

115. MR MEARNS: So, when did they acquire it?

116. MRS BROADBEN T: In 1960.

117. MR MEARNS: So that would have been bought by the then council for West Bromwich because Sandwell did not come into existence until 1973.

118. MRS BROADBENT: That’s right, yes. It was owned by West Bromwich in 1960 but then with all the local authority changes in organisations it then became part of Sandwell because Smethwick, West Bromwich and Oldbury all joined together to form Sandwell.

119. CHAIR: Are we on to your bit yet, Mr Broadbent?

120. MR BRO ADBENT: We should come clean that we are both former employees of Sandwell.

121. MRS BROADBEN T: And that is how we come to be there.

122. MR BELLINGHAM: All right. Well, you are obviously very passionate about being there. It’s tremendous to see it.

123. MRS BROADBEN T: It isn’t just us; it’s everybody.

124. MR BELLINGHAM: Of course.

125. MRS BROADBENT: Everybody in the village is passionate about it. If you think about the church, the hall, the orangery and the stables, everybody is absolutely pass io na te. One thing I might add about Ingestre Hall is that it has only been since we have been there that the hall has opened up to the community. So, we started off in small ways working with them and now we have a really good partnership so that all of the skills and talents that are in the village, and there are a lot of people who are very skilled and talented, are actually utilised now by the church and by the hall. So, we are all working closely together now.

126. CHAIR: Mr Broadbent?

127. MR BROADBEN T: Thank you. I think you can see why we felt obliged to petition because we do feel so strongly about the effects that HS2 could have on our community. Particularly, I have to say that when we read the response to our petition we were somewhat underwhelmed, so we are very appreciative of being invited to attend before the Committee to express our concerns about the quality of that reply. It fell short of the mark, frankly, that we would have expected.

128. Throughout, HS2 has failed to address specific points that we have raised. That response relies on general statements and Information Papers that do little to answer the points in our petition. Many of the documents sent to us are drafts.

129. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Mr Broadbent, how many pages do you have?

130. MR BROADBEN T: Well, it is big writing.

131. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: How many pages?

132. MR BROADBEN T: I think it is 24.

133. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Can we help you by saying that we anticipate that Mr Strachan will say that it is early days for some of these things?

134. MR BROADBEN T: Yes, I am sure.

135. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: If you think that there are things that we have not heard before or issues we have not considered before, by all means say them but if you can skip through some 20 pages, that would be a favour to us and won’t do you any harm.

136. MR BROADBENT: I will do my best. I don’t know, of course, what has been said before.

137. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: A lot.

138. MR BROADBENT: I am sure you will put me right or somebody will. The response generally begs more questions than it answers. That is where we are at.

139. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We have that, yes.

140. MR BROADBENT: So, with respect, we are also concerned over the presumption that it has all been said route-wide, but the issues that we want to raise are rather specific to our area and our concerns at this particular moment in time.

141. CHAIR: The problem with that is specific issues that relate to Phase 2 we cannot really deal with because we don’t exactly know where Phase 2 is going to go.

142. MR BROADBENT: As in the previous petition, I think it is time to make a mark of those concerns so that they can be put on the agenda.

143. SIR PETER BO TTOMLEY: I think the two of you with your petition and by being present here make everyone realise that were we to look from your home we would see the church, the hall and you would then come to where the line, if it does not move at all, goes from cutting to embankment or embankment to cutting. There is not a great deal that can be gained by saying much more about that now because we don’t know whether the line is going to be maintained and we don’t know, if that is maintained, what else is going to happen. So, I think that you have put the place on the map in an elegant and effective way. So there is n’t a detail we know, they know and everyone knows and it is not going to change until we hear more.

144. MR MEARNS: I think if it is helpful, Mr and Mrs Broadbent, what has been said before is entirely right because all we are dealing with is an outline proposal at the

moment, which is not within the phase of the railway that we actually have the jurisdiction over. What you have done is to have put down important markers that the proposed line at the moment, and it is an outline proposal, goes through an area of outstanding beauty and very close to a collection of buildings on the estate close to your village, which are very important architecturally and historically, and I think from that perspective those points are well made. I have been looking on the Google map as well. It also looks as if the proposed line goes right the way through Ingestre Park Golf Club.

145. MRS BROADBEN T: Yes, it does, absolutely, and we were going to come on to that. Some other people will also mention that to you as well in their petitions.

146. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: But it is not necessary to tell us all that now and it does not help if you do.

147. MRS BROADBEN T: Okay.

148. MR BROADBENT: I will do what I can. We felt somewhat dismayed following the announcement by Sir David Higgins when he expressed the desire to build a stretch from Handsacre to Crewe at the same time as Phase 1, London to Birmingham. Hitherto we had assumed that Phase 2 would be built after Phase 1 and that all of P hase 2 would have the same amount of consultation time as P hase 1. Now that appears not to be the case. If the Higgins proposal goes ahead, we would have a shorter consultation period tha n a ll the others. That is a major concern within the community.

149. We will leave the point that I was going to make about the effects on health and safety and our wellbeing, which will all be very considerable. The construction of HS2 that affects the village more than anything else is the building of the 570 metre long viaduct approximately 20 feet high, not including the synthetic cables across the beautiful Trent Valley on the edge of the Cannock Chase AONB. We are twinned with our adjacent village of Tixall which is right at the edge of that. This will have a significant effect on the views obtained both towards the and away from the AONB boundary, the whole of the Trent and Soar Valley system adjacent to Shropshire Hall and Great Haywood nearby, indeed all of which is outstandingly beautifully.

150. Additionally, immediately on the northern side of the viaduct is the Ingestre conservation area. So, we have particular concerns about that.

151. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Mr Broadbent, forgive me. If you are going to go on for 20 pages of this, it is not going to help, I am afraid.

152. MR BROADBENT: Okay. We do have a salt mine and I did want to particularly talk about the geological aspects. I could go on to that straightaway.

153. MRS BROADBEN T: A particular problem we have is that the 2013 announcement was probably for us at the worst point in time. I am 70, Roger is 73 so whatever happens this will affect us for the rest of our lives and that is of concern because at the same time we had just been diagnosed as having cardiovascular problems as well. Whilst we don’t dwell on that – we do everything we can to alleviate it – we have to be realistic. We know that this will be for the rest of our lives. That is why we are so passionate about it. It will also affect us health-wise because we do find it extremely stressful. It has taken a lot of effort to come here today because that is stressful too. But also the biggest problem for me, if I cut to the chase – I won’t bore you with all the details – but when I look through all the documentation we have about health and safety, everything is focusing on HS2 and what HS2 will do and what they will tell us. There is nothing whatsoever about us being able to say to HS2, especially during the construction phase, ‘We’re going to be doing this, this and this.’ You’ve seen all the sorts of activities we do. They take two years to plan. We plan things into the future just as you do with HS2 but there is not a mechanism that I can see that is embedded into all of the paperwork that has come through. It does not tell us what you are going to expect of the contractors. How will they work with the communities? That is what causes a lot of stress. We have weddings and funerals as well as our other events going on and so have other villages but I don’t see anything there that is written into it, embedded into any document.

154. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: There will be answers to that but we need to get you to finish first.

155. MRS BROADBENT: Yes, okay. So, I am looking for some way in which you are going to evaluate the impact of the construction phase of HS2 on the health, wellbeing and lives of the people there. Are you thinking about or considering laying down a baseline so that you can then get the contractors to actually respond positively to people?

156. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We have your point on that.

157. MRS BROADBEN T: Okay, in which case could you make sure, please, that there is something within your documents, some requirements of how people are going to work with local communities, and, particularly, don’t burden the parish councils. Please don’t do that. We only meet 10 times a year. We had a letter dated 16 January about some recent changes. It did not come to me until last week and we have a meeting next week to discuss it. These are practical things, and I realise the devil is in the detail but it is the lack of detail that causes the stress.

158. MR BRO ADBENT: I will try again. You have mentioned previously that the route has not yet been decided. I am very concerned about this project to cross the Trent Valley. It will be a major engineering challenge and it’s important that it’s got right and it’s put in the right place. We did commission a British Geological Survey of the area and it was found that there was no real substantial evidence to support the route or any route at this particular moment because there has not been sufficient geological work done. That would have to be done before the final route was decided, quite clearly.

159. MRS BROADBENT: Would you like to call up the number?

160. MR BROADBENT: We have discovered that there are two salt marshes in the area, a second one which hasn’t really had a great deal of prominence for a long time, but it’s been recorded since the 18th century, and slide A290(24)?

161. MRS BROADBENT: No, not that one; it’s A290(24). It’s the next group of petitioners’ files. I think that’s the particular one we need. 24, sorry. It’s just so that you can see that it’s not just this line, it’s all the other lines as well. But that’s where the current line goes through and the others are all pretty close to it as well.

162. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: The idea there is salt around in the Trent Valley, is slightly given away by the fact there’s a place called Saltheath –

163. MRS BROADBENT: That’s right, yes. We’ve actually got written records going back to 1676 for this one.

164. MR BROADBENT: Well, HS2 Ltd failed to refer to make any response to the view expressed in the survey. We would expect to have a proper response from that at

some time. I appreciate that we’ve been invited here, perhaps a little earlier than previously anticipated. That HS2 expressed in the survey states that, ‘Geological information of the Pasturefields SAC’, which is to the north of the line of the proposal is limited. Then on page 13 and 14 of the BGS report, which I believe HS2 have got a copy of that they reported that, ‘Alternative conceptual ground models have not been tested’. Furthermore, there has been little resolution in issues regarding the alleged deterioration of the quality of the Pasturefields SAC. Without this baseline data it is hard for anyone to predict the potential impact of the proposed HS2 construction along any of the proposed alignments. What appears to have happened is that a lot of wonderful diagrams I’ve seen have been performed regarding where the brine to that Pasturefields SAC comes from. That’s all conjecture; there hasn’t been any proper geological survey as far as we’re aware of what the impact on the Pasturefields SAC would be.

165. Now, to avoid the Pasturefields SAC, the preferred route now appears to go across the Trent Valley, not avoiding a SAC or a saltmarsh but goes right through the middle of the industry, historic or ancient, saltmarsh. We’ve done some further survey work on that. The breeding birds there are curlew and lapwing. As I’ve mentioned in my presentation summary, the only pair of breeding curlew in lowland Staffordshire, nesting on that site with the railway going right the way through the middle of it. Furthermore, the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust in their habitat survey, and we found a plant that hadn’t been found in Staffordshire since 1923 – exceptionally rare plant called stiff saltmarsh grass. So, we certainly would be asking, in advance of any declaration of finalisation of the route, that a proper survey be done because it’s most important that this – the route across the Trent Valley – the engineering aspect is absolutely got right. You cannot ignore the geological aspect of the work. So, that to us would be a basic requirement, that we would hope the committee could help us with. I think that basically is it.

166. CHAIR: Okay, thank you very much.

167. MR BROADBEN T: You can get your 24 pages.

168. CHAIR: Mr Strachan. We’re not really dealing with Phase 2 but could you just set out how, on Phase 1 we deal with the issues, construction code, local groups we

consult with, to reassure this couple of how in all likelihood, Phase 2 will proceed in the same way?

169. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes. For present purposes, assuming Phase 2 proceeds in the same way as Phase 1, there is quite a considerable amount of detail before the committee and the companies – the detail of a railway that is being proposed for Phase 1 which deals with the way in which it would be constructed and part of the material is a draft Code of Construction Practice which sets out in quite a lot of detail the sorts of things that will be required to be done by the contractors in terms of discussion with local communities so that they understand and can tell the contractors what’s going on in the local area to try to minimise the impacts of construction. So it is important to note – I know this isn’t for Phase 2, but for the Phase 1 process – and one would expect the same for Phase 2 – that that Bill, if it proceeds by way of Bill in that way, will be accompanied by a similar draft Code of Construction Practice which builds in as a requirement the obligations to talk to the local community in just the way that’s been identified. I am very happy to get a copy of – there is an information paper which we have for Phase 1 – it’s available on the website but it deals specifically with the Code of Construction Practice and sets out the sorts of things that the contractor would be required to do to minimise what, obviously, is a disruptive process, but to minimise the effects on people living in the area. I know, of course, there will be disruption, but it does take those steps and they are quite comprehensive steps to try and minimise the effects. So it’s information paper D3, summarises the draft Code of Construction Practice; the Code of Construction Practice itself is a more detailed document which is also available on the website, and that will become final when the Bill receives Royal Assent. If it helps, we’ll dig out a copy –

170. MRS BROADBENT: We’ve actually –

171. MR S TRACHAN QC (DfT): You’ve got a copy –

172. MR BROADBENT: We’ve got a copy, we’ve read it.

173. MRS BROADBENT: Is it alright for us to respond?

174. CHAIR: Well, let Mr Strachan finish first.

175. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): So that I hope – I understand they already have a copy. I won’t repeat myself on the Phase 2 point; I have made the same response.

176. CHAIR: I would just add that there are great concerns all the way up and down the line about construction; we spend a lot of time talking about it; the Code of Construction Practice will be written into the contracts with the various undertakers; there will be a means of raising complaints to deal with issues locally and quickly, but if they are not dealt with quickly, to have a proper person look at it. Of course, the petitioning process for Phase 2 will also give you the opportunity to raise concern when you know where there could be construction compounds, where the routes are for lorry movement, HGV movements, everything else. So these issues will be fully discussed; you are just ahead of your time.

177. MR BROADBENT: Yes. I appreciate that. A lot of the things that are going to be decided for Phase 1, will be in place by the time we come to talk about Phase 2. But where is the Phase 2 resident’s input into that exercise? I mean, I’ve read the Code of Construction Practice, and part of my presentation was about the shortcomings of that document. You did mention that it’s a draft; it’s likely to be amended and it’s likely to be expanded, it says. Now, that’s great; I’m pleased to hear that. But where do we get the input into that discussion?

178. CHAIR: You get it on petitioning for P hase 2. I mean, at the moment, we’ve got nearly 2,000 petitioners. There is nothing that we raised in Phase 2 that will not have been raised in Phase 1. Everything will be done to death, whether it’s salt marshes or design, everything. Now, quite clearly, some things we decide will effectively be the starting point for Phase 2. But we have a massive amount of information that we’re assimilating; lots of communities, lots of villages – lots of very attractive villages like yours – making representations.

179. MR BROADBENT: Well we did petition as Phase 2. We live in Phase 2.

180. CHAIR: Yes, but you’re here because of two clauses of the Bill to do with surveying, not because of the broad – even if we wanted – we would be delighted to help you out but we can’t, because we’re limited by what Parliament has told us to do. If we had to deal with P hase 2 and go all the way up, we’d all shoot ourselves, probably because we’d be here for even more years.

181. MR BROADBENT: Well, we have further opportunity –

182. CHAIR: Our pledge to you: we will do the most conscientious job we can, to try to resolve as many issues we can, so that when you come to P hase 2 and you no doubt will petition at Phase 2 and appear at Phase 2 – and you’ve even got half your slideshow already for the future – then hopefully we will clear away some of the issues you’re concerned about and you can raise other things which –

183. MR BROADBENT: We look forward to seeing you or your successors –

184. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Are you talking about the seawort and the blawort and the other saltmarsh flowers?

185. MRS BROADBENT: Could I just make one point?

186. CHAIR: Yes.

187. MRS BROADBENT: The one thing that hasn’t been picked up is this problem we’ve got with the three lines and the BGS report which says nothing has yet been done to identify whether or not any line –

188. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: You’ll have to wait until there’s a proposal for the line and the environmental statement that goes with it, and the like. Don’t take onto yourselves responsibilities which others will fulfil.

189. MRS BROADBENT: Oh, I don’t know!

190. CHAI R: Yo u’ ll ge t a lot mo re info r ma tio n whe n the y do the environmental statement, which will cover all the things such as your saltmarshes and everything else.

191. MRS BROADBENT: Okay.

192. CHAIR: Anyway, we enjoyed the beautiful pictures, you are clearly very enthusiastic about it.

193. MRS BROADBEN T: I’m glad you did. Absolutely, we love the place.

194. CHAIR: Thank you Mr and Mrs Broadbent. We are now going to move to Jeremy Lefroy, and then after that – mainly because I think you’ve got a meeting to get

away to – then we will get back to Mr Cook, Mr Smith and Mr Wilkinson afterwards.

Jeremy Lefroy MP

195. MR LEFROY: Thank you very much, C hairman, and I appreciate you and your colleagues for inviting me and hearing me slightly out of order because of the question I have to put to the Foreign Secretary later this morning. I’ve already made a submission and I won’t – having heard my colleague the Member for Worthing’s comments before – read out what I’ve got here. I just want to make three points. One is about the route; one is about compensation; and one is about access.

196. As far as the route is concerned, I have real concerns about the response of HS2 to the question that I and others, including Staffordshire County Council have raised about the Handsacre Junction. The Handsacre Junction is incredibly important. If, a s Parliament has decided, Phase 1 goes ahead, not only for my constituents but also for the whole of central and north Staffordshire. What really concerned me was despite verbal assurances that I’ve had that the junction will go ahead even if the stage to Crewe is accelerated, from Fradley to Crewe, that in HS2’s response to my petition, there is this clause which I put in bold type, ‘This is subject to any amendment of the Bill by subsequent legislation to remove the requirement to construct the Handsacre Junction’. In my submission, I have pointed out that if this were to be removed, either by an amendment to this Bill or by a subsequent Bill which took it out, then it would vitiate the government’s position on construction HS2 full stop for two reasons. F irstly, as I’ve quoted the under-Secretary of State for Transport wrote in a response to my written Parliamentary question, ‘The Department’s aim is that all towns and cities which currently have a direct service to London will retain broadly comparable or better services once HS2 is completed. If the Handsacre Junction is removed from this Bill, that will not be the case. Both Stafford and Stoke on Trent – a conurbation of 350,000 – Stafford itself will have a much worse service than currently, full stop, that is without doubt.

197. Secondly, the Department for Transport in its document, which it published in January 2013, it wrote, ‘The transformational rail links that HS2 will bring, particularly if combined with other transport improvements could play an important role in helping enhance the potential of the Midlands and the North to act as a counterweight to the

economic strength of London and the Southeast. Without the Handsacre Link, it will in fact damage the economies of the north Midlands in my area, in Stafford and Stoke on Trent, a population together of somewhere in the region of three-quarters of a million people. I clearly understand it’s the prerogative of Parliament to amend any Bill or pass any future legislation to revoke something like the Handsacre link. That is way above my pay grade.

198. However, what I am asking the committee to do is to make the point that I’m making, to consider a statement that any future proposal to Parliament by HS2 for an amendment to remove Handsacre Junction, the door which they clearly left open in their response to me, would have such a major impact on the economy of central and north Staffordshire, through the deterioration of services to Stafford and Stoke on Trent, that it would do the opposite of the Secretary of State’s intention for broadly comparable or better services, and for enhancing the economic potential of this vital part of the Midlands. I accept that while it would not prevent such an amendment, it would certainly give any government considerable pause for thought before introducing something which flew in the face of its own expressed intentions for HS2. So Chairman, that is my comment on the route and my response to HS2’s response to my petition.

199. In respect of compensation, you will have heard an enormous amount on this and about the property bond which I fully support; I don’t intend to go into the details because you will have exhausted discussion on that. However, I will make some specific points which directly impact my constituents. Firstly, the initial preferred route was first published in 2013, the anticipated end-date for the construction is 2033. Therefore, my constituents are subject to blight for up to 20 years, which is indeed, longer than Phase 1. Given that most people could reasonably expect to move within a period of 20 years, it’s essential that we have a compensation scheme which is fair, effective and efficient. It’s not a short-term problem, but a long-term problem, affecting five villages, one of which you’ve heard about, Ingestre, Tixall, and very many households in my constituency alone. I would just add a slight point about Ingestre that when the Right Honourable Member for Witney was candidate for Stafford in 1997, he actually lived in Ingestre, and hence he could understand my concerns about the impact on Ingestre and other places of this particular route.

200. But I do have some real concerns which my constituents, Mr and Mrs Broadbent already have raised, and that is the detrimental impact on health and wellbeing of many people over this extended period of time. Obviously the elderly – but not just them, also the disabled and others – and the situation has not been helped by the inadequate operation of the only scheme available to my constituents which is the exceptional hardship scheme. O f course, it’s not been helped by the further delay to the government’s response to the initial preferred route, which we expected at the end of last year, and we have no sign of yet; there is no sign of it yet. We are now expecting towards the end of this year. That heightens anxiety.

201. That is why I am asking specifically, in respect of health and wellbeing, from now I am asking that at the arrangements made for my constituents and others affected by Phase 2 and the initial preferred route, to include access to independent advice and counselling, including in relation to mental health, should they wish for it. I have come across many cases of people who have been severely distressed by the announcement, the lack of information from HS2 and the lack of information about the consequences to them. I think it’s only fair that that should be provided by HS2 to my constituents affected by Phase 2, not just those in Phase 1.

202. Finally on the compensation scheme, the exceptional hardship scheme has merits and it has assisted some of my constituents but it has several disadvantages: it is arbitrary to my mind. I have had constituents apply in similar circumstances, who have had different outcomes, different decisions. They also – and this is a point I’ve raised with you privately, Mr C hairman – constituents have reported having to accept unreasonable deductions from fair market value to bring, as HS2 says, the property to rentable condition. I’ve raised this with the Minister responsible for Phase 2. She does not consider it’s acceptable that that happens. It is happening and I know of at least two circumstances where it has done, of which I can provide you details.

203. Finally it’s an adversarial process, in which those who are used to property sales, who are prepared to hold out, sometimes do better than those who are unused to do it, have an urgent Need to Sell, and just don’t want to be hassled. I have had a case where a constituent had just lost his spouse, and clearly was in no position to argue hardball with HS2. In my opinion, to use a vernacular, ‘got shafted’. That is inequitable. So what I am asking for is a property bond scheme, which many others will have asked for.

I am also asking the committee to require the promoters to ensure that the exceptional hardship scheme, which is the only redress open to my constituents is operated in an equitable and efficient manner, better than the way in which it has operated at the moment.

204. Finally, Chairman, in respect of access. I am petitioning also on behalf of my constituents Mr Russell and Mrs Jane Maingay who live in Colwich. Now, Colwich is mentioned in the Bill for Phase 1, because HS2 will require access to works via Colwich. I received a letter only last week from HS2 saying that they expect the extent of those works at Colwich and the access to be greater than initially envisaged. So that just increases my concern, and that is why I am seeking a direction from you, Chairman, that the Parish Council, local residents and Member of Parliament will be fully consulted well in advance of any intention to access the Phase 1 works in and through Colwich, and that their concerns will be acted upon by HS2.

205. Then the final point in respect to access, Chairman, I would like to raise – and that comes out through the map that has been submitted of my constituency along with my response – and that is that there must be, prior to any commencement of work on HS2, whether my phase or others, an impact assessment of the adequacy of the effect of the works, on the adequacy of the road network to cope with the additional traffic and the obstructions so that there is no negative economic and social impact on my constituency or elsewhere. If you look at the map, you’ll see HS2 crosses several trunk roads, including the A51, the A34 – which my constituents from Yarlet have already mentioned – both major trunk roads for the West Midlands, the A34 being one of the major north-south roads in the country, going up to Manchester. O f course, the western road, near the Staffordshire Show Ground, and of course, the M6, although the crossing there is in my honourable friend, the Member for S tone’s constituency.

206. So, in conclusion on access, I would like a direction that the Department for Transport – which is, after all, responsible for HS2 – ensures that the major regional and national road network which will be greatly affected by construction is reinforced and mitigation is put in to ensure that the economy of the whole region is not affected.

207. CHAIR: Good points. Mr Strachan, the Colwich, the letter from HS2. Do you have any more information on that, that you could share with the Member of

Parliament?

208. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes, the letter in relation to Colwich, as the committee will be aware, there are some works necessary to the West Coast Mainline by way of signalling and gantry changes, in part to achieve one of the other objectives, which we have spoken about, in terms of using the West Coast Mainline. Those are comparatively minor works which the committee has heard about, in terms of changing signalling arrangements over the West Coast Mainline, requiring some temporary possessions of those lines, the details of the ones that were proposed were set out in volume 4 of the environment statement. They are called, ‘Off-route effects’, because they are not on the Phase 1 line itself, including the anticipated construction traffic which are a relatively minor source of construction activity.

209. The letter that went recently is identifying that there were some minor changes that were being proposed by way of additional provisions to, I think, a couple of the train platforms that are necessary for the gantry arrangements and routes of access to them. They are minor changes but they are of course, ones that will be covered by an additional provision and will therefore have to go through the process of being put forward by way of plans to be considered by the committee –

210. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: When they come forward, a person who thinks they are affected adversely can petition?

211. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Precisely. Having said all that, as soon as I’m aware of there being final plans – I am sure we can make them available at any early stage so that you can see exactly what they are – but that is what the letter was concerning. They are not significant things, but they are ones that will require an additional provision, so there is that protection for people to comment on them.

212. CHAIR: Handsacre?

213. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes, Handsacre –

214. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Which was Jeremy Lefroy’s paragraph 10, which was the one paragraph that didn’t seem to get a reply in the response?

215. MR LEFROY: Yes, it got the reply in the response to my combined petition with

Mr and Mrs Maingay but not in mine, no. I, at first, was confused.

216. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Well, I think there is a response to that. The position about the Handsacre link is of course that the promoter is promoting the Handsacre link before this committee; it’s part of the Bill. It’s an assurance that’s been given to Staffordshire County Council about requiring that link to be constructed as the Phase 1 is constructed, and the caveat that is there is in recognition of the fact that it’s not within the gift of the promoter to prevent legislative changes, requiring its removal. But it’s certainly not our intention to remove it. If it were to be removed by legislative change, then no doubt people who objected to such a change would have again the opportunity to object to it. I reiterate: it is not our intention to take it out; it is there, part of the Bill that we are promoting and the assurance that we have given to Staffordshire makes that plain.

217. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Which in words is, the promoter will require the nominated undertaker to complete the construction of the Handsacre Junction before any part of the railway to the north, etc.

218. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Indeed. It provides assurance that it will actually be constructed as part of the railway.

219. CHAIR: You want to make a point, Jeremy?

220. MR LEFROY: Yes, thank you very much for that; it’s very helpful.

221. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Just one other point? If it’s necessary, I just want to be clear about the exceptional hardship scheme, because the allusion has been made to cases where it’s said that there have been forced reductions in valuations. The exceptional hardship scheme is clear: that if a case is accepted, it’s full unblighted market value which is paid for the property, and there’s a process for disputes over valuations to be resolved with two valuations within 10% of each other, the middle point – and if they’re not, a third valuation is taken. That’s set out in the document. The full, unblighted market value, as in any case for any property, will take account the state of repair of the property, but that’s standard practice. I’m not aware of the two cases referred to. If details are going to be provided, then no doubt, we will look into that.

222. CHAIR: Okay. Final point, presumably also with Staffordshire, there no doubt is discussion about transport network and impact of construction and everything else?

223. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes.

224. CHAIR: So presumably, that would be a template for, effectively, what may happen in Phase 2 and beyond?

225. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Certainly. As the committee knows, in respect of Phase 1, transportation issues and the effect on the road network is something which is looked at in detail in the environmental statement, through the transport assessments, and where criticisms are being made, they are having to be addressed as part of that process. So, that would also occur for Phase 2.

226. CHAIR: Okay. Jeremy?

227. MR LEFROY: Thank you very much, C hairman, and I appreciate those responses. On the question of Handsacre, I would just like to ask the following question: if, for instance, I was a Birmingham MP and I had concerns that the spur to Birmingham, to the main station in the middle of Birmingham was going to be removed, and I asked the same question to the promoters, would they also say this is subject to any amendment of the Bill by subsequent legislation to remove the requirement to construct the station in the middle of Birmingham?

228. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I think the answer is yes. That reflects the legislative reality which is that it is not within our gift to control what the legislature decides. We made our intentions in relation to the Bill clear.

229. MR LEFROY: So what it means is that the Handsacre Junction is effectively as important as other parts of the line and you would have that proviso for any single part of the line?

230. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: If this was a philosophy course, I am afraid your supervisor would have questioned the exact logic!

231. CHAIR: Anyway, you made your point about the importance of the junction, so clearly that will be a matter to keep one’s eye on, but I suspect that the promoters want

to do it and it’s going to go through a process. We have heard petitioners in and around Handsacre that would rather like it not to be there.

232. MR LEFROY: I think it was very important to get over the point, Chairman, that it would completely contradict the government’s aims for HS2 if it were not there. Just finally, may I press the promoter on this aspect of providing independent advice and counselling to my constituents who are impacted by the route, both in terms of negotiation if they have to sell their property, but also more generally, maybe making provision through the local National Health Service, for additional resources so that they can actually take up these matters where they feel a great deal of stress and concern over the impact of HS2 on their lives; this is a very real issue for my constituents now and for the next few years. That is why I was asking for the committee to ask HS2 to provide that through the local National Health Service with additional resources.

233. CHAIR: Any comment on that?

234. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): It’s not a matter within my remit as a promoter for Phase 1 to make that sort of decision, but what I can point to is that there is, as I indicated yesterday, the exceptional hardship scheme that exists with respect to Phase 2. I know some people don’t regard it as going far enough, but that is a balanced decision that has been made to reflect the state of play so far as Phase 2 is concerned, with the prospect of longer-term compensation measures being introduced as the route develops. It’s not part of that proposal to have specific or additional counselling mechanisms, but clearly part of the process of progressing with Phase 2 brings with it the importance of communication, engagement with communities so that people understand what is going on, when it’s likely to happen, and that consultation process, obviously in relation to a route, has already taken place and consultation has been considered. But beyond that, I can’t comment.

235. CHAIR: We will take your comment as a bid for that to be something that we need to consider when we sweep up the issues of the committee. Because, certainly with my conversations with you and others, there are people not in a good place. Okay, thank you.

236. MR LEF ROY: Thank you, Chairman.

237. CHAIR: Thank you very much, Jeremy. Now we have David Cook, Steven Smith, Andrew Wilkinson? Good morning gentleman, sorry to keep you waiting.

David Cook, Steven Smith and Andrew Wilkinson

238. MR COOK: Good morning, C hair. In line with the wishes of HS2 and the Select Committee, to save some time, our petitions are very similar and we propose, with your permission, to present them together if we may?

239. CHAIR: Most welcome, thank you.

240. MR COOK: Just before we start, could I ask please for 5020 please? Chair, this shows the map and highlights, my home address is the one that’s there, which is approximately 360 metres from the line. Can we have 5021 please? This one shows the home of Mr Smith, sat next to me, my next door neighbour, and that’s actually 380 metres from the line. 5021 please? Finally, Mr Wilkinson, who is from Tixall, the other side of the line, and his premises are approximately 700 metres from the line.

241. MR MEARNS: Just for the record, does that mean we’ve actually got the name tags the wrong way around?

242. MR COOK: Yes it does.

243. MR MEARNS: It’s just, on the telly, everybody will think you’re somebody else!

244. MR COOK: Thank you. And just for completeness, in terms of the area, could I ask for A2905 please? It was mentioned by members of the committee earlier that the line went through the golf course; this is an aerial view, spelt incorrectly I’m afraid on the heading, but this is an aerial view of the golf course. Ingestre village – or parts of Ingestre village – can be seen down to the bottom here. Ingestre village here, part of it; again, some more up here; there’s more of the village to the right. Where the mouse is now is Ingestre Hall –

245. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And the church?

246. MR COOK: And the church, which Mrs Broadbent discussed, and the actual line – if you can see, through the golf course, there is a walkway, that actually is the original road to the Hall. The line is just to the right of that, so will go across and out further up

here. That’s where the line will be, and as it goes through the golf course, it is on an embankment 13 metres high to track level.

247. So, first of all, Chair, we’d like to thank the Select Committee for the opportunity of addressing you; but we’d also like formally to express our disappointment at the restrictions placed upon us in terms of the issues that we can discuss. We remain very much of the opinion that many of the issues are route-wide and not limited to Phase 1. Whilst we acknowledge that some time in the future, we will have the opportunity to address in similar settings to this, a response to a further Hybrid Bill, it is clear to us – and indeed I believe it’s recognised by yourselves, that decisions made by this Committee on Phase 1 will provide a benchmark for future decisions in respect of Phase 2. We believe that certain decisions that are raised in respect of Phase 1 will be forced on Phase 2 without us having the opportunity of raising points in connection with them. This, with respect Chair, is short sighted and may prove to be a disadvantage to us in the future. By way of an analogy, I can’t think of a situation in Parliament, if something was affecting MP’s constituencies between London and Manchester, if those between London and Birmingham could be heard, and the other were told they have to restrict what they could say because others will have already said to before them.

248. That having been said, we will of course respect your decision and we will limit our presentation to the following subjects. Could I ask for 290(6) please? Topics we propose to cover are clause 50 and other similar clauses; light and compensation; Phase 2 route, and with respect of the route, I acknowledge what’s just been said, but actually, it’s in a slightly different context that we wish to raise it, which I will come onto shortly.

249. Can I have A290(7) please? We believe that the clauses that fall into the category are 50, 51, 52, 62, and by omission, 63. We say that because missing from clause 63 is, throughout the Bill, as one might expect there’s constant references to high speed rail. However, to our knowledge, we can find no definition within the Bill of ‘high speed rail’. As a result of that, we believe that this provides the ability to take the powers within the Bill way beyond those needed for the construction and operation of Phase 2, HS1.

250. Could I have 290(8) please? In the absence of any description for high speed rail, there is one that is provided by the EU. Clearly, at the present time we are still a

member of the EU, it is up on the screen, but the bits that we particularly want to draw your attention to is that it clearly states a new-build railway line, suitable for speeds greater than 250km/h, which clearly HS2 Phase 1 will be; or existing lines that are upgraded to speeds of the order of 200km/h or above, are classified as high speed. So, HS2 Phase 1 clearly falls into that category, but the powers that are sought extend the provisions of this Bill beyond the scope of HS2 Phase 1. It encompasses, we suggest, all of HS2 Phase 2, as well as any proposals that affect the following railway lines that are, under that definition, already high speed. That would include HS1, West Coast Mainline, Central Mainline, East Coast Mainline, Great Western and Midland Mainline.

251. Further, we contend that under the terms of clause 51(1) and 51(4), together in combination, it will cover any other part of the classic rail network for which a Command Paper has been presented to Parliament in the past five years that involves upgrading an existing line to 200km/h or above. We ask the committee to require the promoter to properly define high speed for the purpose of the Bill, and to re-evaluate all relevant clauses to ensure, if its use is constrained, to matters relevant to HS2 Phase 1 and not to any future high speed railway line in Great Britain.

252. While on the subject of clause 51 and 52, I should make another point at this stage, and that is to say that we find the response from the promoter in respect to these points that we raised in our petition to be totally inadequate. The promoter’s response stated, ‘This provision is similar to that contained in other planning legislation’, and then went on to say, ‘Parliament has previously considered this matter and concluded its inclusion in this type of legislation is appropriate and reasonable’. To not then provide to us the legislation that it’s previously been contained in and when it was discussed in Parliament so that we can check those details is, we submit, totally inadequate and we ask that the promoter provide those details for us.

253. Could I have A290(9) please? In respect of clause 51 we believe that it allows access onto land is far too wide-ranging and we wish to make the following points. We believe it’s far too wide ranging; it’s outside the scope of the Bill, not being a purpose connected with HS2.

254. Can I have slide 10 please? We acknowledge of course that where an existing line meets a new line, there may be a requirement for works to be conducted that would

require some access to land for the reasons outlined in the Bill, but we believe that this should be limited to the construction of the new HS2 Phase 1 line, or existing railway lines, where they connect with HS2 Phase 1. So, a suitable distance away from where that connection takes place. We strongly believe that should access be required elsewhere then the communities affected have the opportunity to consider and comment upon it. Our concern here, C hair, is that the way things stand at the moment, it is entirely possible that, for example, somewhere on the West Coast Mainline, that may be 300 miles away to where it actually connects with HS1, the powers in this Bill would allow clause 51 and 52 to take place, because the actual legislation talks about ‘all or part of the journey’.

255. Could I have slide 12 please? We would also like to make comments about section 51(10)(a). We note, with considerable concern the contents of this subsection. The Bill proposes that the Secretary of State can by Statutory Instrument substitute the proposed 500 metres with any other distance of his or her choice. We believe there must be safeguards added to prevent unwarranted and unnecessary blanket extensions to the current proposed distance. We believe that any alterations must be for a specific purpose on a case-by-case basis and restricted to the specific areas concerned. We also believe that the decision maker in respect of any such matters should not actually be the promoter but should have independent oversight.

256. Slide 11 please? We are also concerned about the unnecessary powers sought under clause 51(6)(a) where access is granted for survey purposes when the activities connected must be limited to those applicable to the construction of the railway. To ascertain the nature of subsoil seems appropriate to us. The additional permissions, to determine the presence of minerals or other matters, we believe there should be a clause there restricting it to, for the purpose of the construction. The reason we say that is that it’s part and parcel of HS2’s case that they will seek minerals from sources nearby to where the construction takes place. We do not anticipate that they should be allowed access onto land and then to search for minerals that may lead to further removal of minerals from that land. We believe the committee must seek an amendment to this clause to ensure that the depth and nature of investigations is limited to that necessary for the construction of the railway and not for any other purpose.

257. Can I have slide 13 please? This is in relation to clause 52 and compensation.

Neither the Bill nor the promoter’s petition response document makes any reference to the already-existing HS2 early access agreement for survey purposes. We presume – we must presume – that this is the starting point for negotiations in obtaining consent. The petition response document says that the powers under 51 and 52 will only be used if consent is unreasonably withheld. We appreciate that, we acknowledge that is something that should be in there, however, what we will say is that the committee should seek clarification from the promoter on what the tests are for unreasonableness. What arrangements will be made for obtaining amicable resolution before recourse to an application for a warrant from a Justice of the Peace will be made? We note also that at present, the proposals within the Bill suggests that compensation may be claimed should damage be caused to the land or other property under 52(5) and 52(6).

258. We seek clarification of the meaning of the clause 52(6)(a) and an explanation of the nature of compensation for damage to land or property available under the legislation cited, that legislation being part 1 of the Land Compensation Act which we understand generally only covers blight-related losses due to physical effects. The relationship between these clauses of the Bill and the equivalent provisions of the existing HS2 early access agreement need to be explained. We seek confirmation, for example, that in the absence of the HS2 early access agreements, that additional compensation will also include other losses such as owner-occupier being deprived of the use of their land, or incurring extra costs to manage entry onto the land.

259. Clause 62 anticipates Phase 2 and has potential to be far more wide-ranging since sub-clauses (b) and (c) appear to cover all of Phase 2 as well as all parts of classic network, over which classic-compatible services may run. In a manner similar to the issues arising from the lack of proper definition of high speed, there is scope, we believe, for unconstrained interpretation of Phase 1 purposes, since there is a large combination of possible trains and train paths that in some way could involve HS2 Phase 1 which is what I alluded to earlier. We request that the committee seek from the promoter the necessary revisions to this clause, to limit its applicability only to the things being done or required that are necessary to support services and routes that can realistically be operated over HS2 Phase 1, when it first opens. Any actions required later, when Phase 2 opens, should be addressed at that time.

260. Can I have slide 14 please? Move on if we may to blight and compensation? The

initial preferred route for HS2 Phase 2 was published in January 2013. It is currently scheduled to be concluded and in operation in 2033. The announcement resulted in immediate and severe blight for residents along that route. Assuming that the project is completed on time – and personally I very much doubt that – those individuals or communities affected by HS2 Phase 2 will suffer, or have suffered, a minimum of 20 years of property blight without recourse to full and fair compensation. We submit that this is totally unreasonable and should be addressed as a matter of urgency.

261. Can I have slide 15 please? At present, the only recourse to compensation for Phase 2 for residents is the exceptional hardship scheme. This scheme is not fit for purpose and is being replaced on Phase 1, with a Need to Sell scheme. We believe that the committee should instruct the government to immediately abandon the HS2 Phase 2 and replace it with, as a minimum, the Need to Sell scheme, as on Phase 1.

262. Can I have slide 16 please? The Phase 2 route consultation concluded in January 2014. Initially, the routes were to be announced in the autumn of the same year. To date, the government have still not provided the result of this consultation. Despite saying that no final decisions have been made on the Phase 2 route, the government are seeking to safeguard a section of the initial preferred route as early as spring of this year. The section they are seeking to safeguard, between Fradley and Crewe, includes Ingestre and Tixall. This action is being taken with a view to accelerating construction and operation of this section by up to six years, and that’s in line with Sir David Higgins’ suggestions. We have recently had a safeguarding consultation in relation to that route, which has now concluded. Within the safeguarding consultation document there were constant references made – and I believe they have been made again to this committee on numerous occasions that no final decision on the route has been made. The government do say and have said repeatedly in the document they did find the proposal by Sir David Higgins to extend to Phase 1 to Crewe compelling; however, no final decisions have been made.

263. We note, then, with considerable impress, that in a recent House of Commons Briefing Note for Members, SN316 dated 19 February 2015, which is here – and I will read the relevant section: ‘Phase 2 from the West Midlands, splitting into two legs, an eastern leg to Leeds New Lane with intermediate stations in the East Midlands and South Yorkshire; and a western leg to Manchester with intermediate stations at Crewe

and Manchester Airport. An intermediate station at Crewe on the western leg, while part of these proposals is not part of the route currently in the public domain’, as highlighted here. We also draw attention to page 23 of the promoter’s response to my petition document, where it says, ‘It is currently the government’s intention to authorise the extension of HS2 to Crewe and beyond by means of a Hybrid Bill.’

264. We believe, Chair, that it is clear from these statements that the government has already decided on this section of the route and for reasons, political or otherwise, have not announced it. Chair, you will have heard, and the committee will have heard, the stress and anxiety that HS2 is causing people, both Phase 1 and Phase 2. Phase 2 at the moment particularly, that is around uncertainty. We believe the government has made that decision as those two comments would seem to illustrate. It is disgraceful that they are adding to the stress and ill-health of people and we call upon you to seek clarity of that immediately.

265. CHAIR: I would just add that when you get near a General Election, government Ministers are restricted by what they can decide for obvious reasons – you can do nice things as well as nasty things. So, I would suspect that when a government is formed post-election, then you will find decisions made; we are just not sure who the government will be.

266. MR COOK: I understand that, Chair, but with the greatest of respect, following Mr Higgins’ proposal, the safeguarding consultation was issued within a week or so. If they can do that, that quickly, they can confirm this route is the route they have decided upon, and it is in our view, my view, absolutely deplorable that they are adding uncertainty and causing unnecessary stress to people. If that decision has been made, they have a duty, an obligation to people, in my view, to say so and to say so immediately.

267. As we touched on earlier, the only discretionary compensation scheme in operation on Phase 2 is the exceptional hardship scheme. The guidance note for Phase 2 exceptional hardship scheme were originally published in July 2013. Subsequently, we have had notification revisions have been made and introduced that materially change the commitments to further discretionary compensation. I will also add here that that was issued the day before the safeguarding consultation concluded by which

time most of us that were submitting responses had done so, and clearly part of that response was around sustainability and costs which included the costs that would come from safeguarding a route that would normally then lead to discretionary compensation schemes.

268. The 2013 guidance indicated that once the route had been safeguarded statutory measures would come into effect and, as with Phase 1, so would long term discretionary compensation measures. The subsequent revisions to the Exceptional Hardship guidance notes from January this year have removed that linkage of further discretionary compensations to safeguarding and now state that they expect the statutory measures will come into force at the end of 2016, which could be 18 months or so after that particular part has been safeguarded and, as the route proposals develop, they will consider long term discretionary compensation.

269. Chair, we say that this is totally unacceptable. It is the government who are seeking to safeguard what they say is an as yet unconfirmed, and therefore speculative, route. The act of safeguarding will lead to a perception that the route has been decided, and additional property blight will follow. It is essential, we say, that once safeguarding is applied, affected property owners, out to the extent of the rural support zone, have access to all components of long term discretionary compensation that are linked to safeguarding. We request that the Committee instruct the government to immediately reinstate the introduction of long term discretionary compensation with the act of safeguarding.

270. We will provide details of examples of property blight within industry. We acknowledge that the Committee will have heard many, many presentations in respect of the current compensation schemes, and we are aware of some of the concerns that you have raised about them.

271. MR SMITH: Thank you. Mr Chair, I’ll give you four examples of property blight in industry, can I have slide 18 please? The first one there, property A, was a property purchased under the Extreme Hardship Scheme by HS2 last year at the full market value. So that shows the good side of the issues. There was a reduction in the amount paid due to the fact that the property had to be done up to rental standard, and that’s one of the properties that Mr Lefroy was referring to earlier.

272. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: If there is written evidence that that is so, I think it should be provided to the Promoters with a copy to us. If it’s a reduction in the value because of the condition of the home from market value if it were up to rental standard that’s a slightly separate issue, but it’s one that can be sorted out between you and the Promoters.

273. MR SMITH: I understand. Market value is market value as per what I would think the estate agent values the property when they come round to value it.

274. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: You’ve made your point, I’ve made my point.

275. MR SMITH: Okay, thank you. Property B was a property advertised for sale pre-HS2. Just prior to HS2 announcement in January 2013 at a value of £460,000. Following the announcement of HS2 that property was eventually sold. It was reduced, initially, to £390,000, and then sold in July last year for £335,000. A reduction of just over 27%. Which just shows, to me anyway, the impact of blight of HS2 on the property market industry. The third one then, if you can go to slide 19, that’s a photograph of the property referred to as property C. Again, sold by an elderly gentleman. Didn’t – he could not claim the Extreme Hardship Scheme and took a reduction of £60,000 on his property initially valued at £240,000, being sold pre- auction.

276. I actually spoke to the owner of that property this week, who held nothing back in that he was able to negotiate on the fact that HS2 was coming potentially, as an initial preferred route, and he used that as a bargaining power to get the price down to that, and pre-auction they agreed to that price rather than let it go to auction, and were prepared to accept £180,000. The last property is my own. Could I have photograph 20 please. That’s the O ld Rectory, and you’ll see that’s my house. Last year I had two separate estate agents come round to the house, just to value it as regards current market. They advised me that the market, as a normal market without HS2, would be worth £650,000. They advised me that, ‘Mr Smith, except a loss of about £125,000’, which equates to 20%.

277. The issue I’d like to make as regards that, sir, is that I won’t apply for the Exceptional Hardship Scheme, and I don’t understand why there is an Exceptional Hardship Scheme. In my view my children, one is at university, one is about to go to

university. That house is a five bedrooms. You can see it is a substantial property. We’ve had a fantastic time living there bringing up our family, but I think, for everyone here, buying houses, moving house is a massive point in your life. I don’t see why I should have to have the Need to Sell to show an urgency, show an urgent need why I Need to Sell, and then have to qualify under the Exceptional Hardship Scheme. I’m afraid I qualify for neither. I don’t have an urgent Need to Sell at the moment, other than I would like to downsize and I would like to take some money out of that property to give both of my children an advantage in life, a start in life on the property market.

278. The Exceptional Hardship Scheme – I’ve heard this morning about cutting short, and I have no issue with that. But this, it’s the unknown I’m afraid. And it could be seven, eight, 10 years before anything is actually guaranteed, and I’m trying to sell that property. Realistically I’ve got no chance of getting its proper value. I’ve put all of my money and earnings of 30 years in the police force into that property, and I just think to have it taken away from me, for no fault of my own, is completely and utterly wrong. I think it the Exceptional Hardship Scheme is wrong, and the Need to Sell, from my limited knowledge of it, where again I need a compelling case to sell my own property. If looked around this room mainly, perhaps most people are home owners. If anyone has to have an urgent need, or a compelling Need to Sell their property, I’m afraid it’s completely wrong.

279. Sorry, my apologies, can we go on to slide 21 please? Right, that’s little old me there. In front of the house, and then if I take you back to slide 20 please, just as regard some context as the embankment that will run past our property, through the golf course, is 13 metres high. If you look at the middle of the three areas of the house, the top of those windows there, Chair, that is 21 feet high. So the embankment will be double the height of that. 42 feet. To me, you’ve seen the surroundings of the golf course and where we live. It’s an absolute idyllic spot which, I’m afraid, is going to be spoilt forever should the train line come through here.

280. MR COOK: Thank you. We contend, C hair, that none of the current schemes are fit for purpose. In common with many of the Phase 1 petitioners that you have heard from, we consider the compensation measures to be totally inadequate. We note the comments of many petitioners before, and of members of this Committee, and share the scepticism of the supposedly relaxed criteria for the Need to Sell Scheme against those

of the Exceptional Hardship Scheme. We urge the Committee to direct the government to replace the current proposals with a property bond scheme, which we believe is the only fair and just method of compensating those blighted by HS2. Had we have had the ability to send some media within our presentation, we would have played very short pieces of media of Mr Cameron, Mr McLoughlin, and many other senior members of the government talking about full and fair compensation and how nobody will lose out from HS2. We will have also shown Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne waxing lyrical after the last budget around the changes to inheritance tax. Effectively, we have been given an inheritance tax for our children. The amount of money that we will lose from our houses is, effectively, an increased inheritance tax upon our children, and is completely unfair and against what their stated objectives are.

281. I now wish, C hair, if I may just to touch on the Phase 2 route, and I accept the conversations that you had earlier with Gill and Roger Broadbent. However, we believe that we need to point this out, because we consider what we’re about to discuss now amounts to a dereliction of duty of the Promoters with regard to the current preferred Phase 2 route, and we say that because we live rurally and, unfortunately our internet connections aren’t great. Maybe the government should do that before HS2, but that’s another argument. But, from what we are able to watch, and from the notes that we are able to read, the transcripts you are able to read, it is quite right continually said by the Promoters that when they’re talking about compensation they have to consider the taxpayers first. We understand that. We accept that. We also say that is absolutely true for HS2.

282. Prior to the announcement of the initial preferred route in January 2013 it been expected that the route that would be followed was one that was listed as HMS03 in the Route Options Report of March 2012. Can I have slide 23 up please. That there highlights it. The two pink ones are – the most straight of the pink ones is the original, or what was thought to be the original route. The actual route they’ve taken is the one that’s highlighted in yellow. What we now call locally, ‘The Cameron swerve’. The reason that this route was not chosen was the stated objective of the government to screen out the need of an appropriate assessment of the Pasturefields Salt Marsh, which has European protection, which would be required if the original route was used, and the blue dot there, against it, is the location of the Pasturefields Salt Marsh. The Salt

Marsh is approximately 500 metres from that route.

283. In between the Salt Marsh and that proposed route is the main A51 trunk road, and also the Trent and Mersey Canal. The cost of changing that route, on HS2’s own costings which we have here, is £154 million. So it’s costing them £154 million to take the route that they’ve put in Initial P referred Route. We contend that the cost of an appropriate assessment would be a minute fraction of that £154 million. Without that assessment it is not known what, if any, impact that route would have on the Pasturefields Salt Marsh, and if it did, indeed, have an impact, what avoidance would be required and what engineering solutions would be available and at what cost, and again we have documentation which highlights a number of different things that they’d looked at, potential engineering proposals. However, it’s hard to see, based on the cost that they’ve been given throughout the rest of the route, how any such solution would cost more than a fraction of the £154 million.

284. In spite of the representations that we’ve made in relation to this to HS2 they have repeatedly refused to initiate the necessary ground surveys. Could I have slide 24 please? You’ve already seen this one from Roger and Gill Broadbent, but in seeking to avoid Pasturefields, not only is that route £154 million more to build but, in doing so, they’ve chosen an alignment that goes through the middle of another example of a rare inland salt marsh. This has recently been subject of initial survey by Staffordshire Wildlife Trust and, whilst their final report is awaited, they have recorded that they have found flora that has not been seen in Staffordshire since 1923 and is only reported in one other inland salt marsh in the UK in modern times. Their conclusion is that this side is currently on the proposed route of Phase 2 of High Speed 2 railway. If the route remains unaltered the site is likely to be lost. Due to the site’s potential importance as a remnant annexe 1 habitat type, a habitat type which is listed on the European Union Habitats Directive. It is considered to be European priority for conservation. A detailed, appropriate, geo-hydrological survey of the site is recommended to ascertain the current conditions the site reports. So that is actually the same protection, or suggesting it may fall under the same protection that Pasturefields currently enjoys.

285. The parish council have – HS2 have very kindly provided all the paperwork in relation to their consultations in making that decision. Whilst with the assistance of the Environment Agency and, forgive me I can’t remember the other, but Natural England,

they concluded, as a result of site visits and research and table-top exercises that the initial preferred route that had been announced is the least likely to impact – not that it won’t impact, the least likely to impact. Parish council, again, have commissioned some work. We’ve all read the documentation that’s been provided by the British Geological Survey. They’ve concluded that there’s insufficient baseline data to predict the potential impact of the proposed HS2 construction going along any of these routes. We request, and I understand the difficulties that were said earlier in terms of this is a Phase 2, but there’s lots of uncertainty and we request that this Committee directs that the government order an appropriate assessment of the Pasturefields Salt Marsh and the appropriate ground works and surveys of the surrounding area. Thank you, Chair.

286. CHAIR: Okay, thank you very much, gentlemen. Thank you very much for combining your petitions. Mr Strachan.

287. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Can I divide up my response just into those two categories; those points which are subject matter of the Bill as compared with those which are not. The bulk of the points made related to Clause 51, and I’ve already responded to some of these points already, but I think there are one or two additional points that were made. If we just get Clause 51 up. I did make the point yesterday that Clause 51 provides a right of entry power in connection with a bill, or proposed bill, to authorise works for a high speed railway line in Great Britain. It is not limited to Phase 1. It is not limited to Phase 2. It is a general public power which parliament is proposing to give a fall back power for rights of entry in the circumstances specified in the Bill, and as identified in the petition response. In so doing it is not doing anything particularly unusual. There are equivalent powers that exist for development consent orders under Section 53 of the Planning Act (2008) where there are recourse to rights of entry powers where someone is promoting a project by way of development consent order.

288. Currently there are not existing powers, fall back powers, for promotion of a bill in this way for a high speed railway line. This clause enables those powers to exist. So there is nothing unusual. They are plainly legitimate powers, and they’re plainly sensible powers to have. Where they are controlled and, of course, I’ve already explained to the Committee today, earlier today, the controls on the use of those fall back powers are not still yet to understand the concern about the existence of these

powers, which exist for other pieces of infrastructure and development. There was a concern, I think expressed in relation to 51(6). The petitioners appeared to be concerned about the ability to go and search for ascertaining the nature of subsoil or presence of minerals, and there was concern that it might be done for purposed other than for construction of a high speed railway line, but of course that’s not possible if you read the clauses together, because if you just go back up to 51(3), ‘A person may only issue a warrant to give authorisation’ etc., ‘Give entry to the land for the purpose proposed is genuinely needed for purposes relating to the construction of the high speed railway line.’ So the base requirement for getting a authorisation of this is that the Secretary of State, or the Justice of Peace, will need to be satisfied as to the genuine nature of the purpose, namely of high speed railway lines.

289. There isn’t a definition of high speed railway in the Bill. This has been observed. The position is that there is a PC Directive 96 of 48 which sets out a definition of high speed railways, which is effectively that which the petitioners showed on the screen: The new railway line, so it’s 250 kilometres per hour, for upgrades of existing railway lines it’s 200 kilometres per hour, I think I’ve got that right. But that definition’s set out in the EC Directive Technical Standards Relation to Interoperability which, of course, is a directive which this country has to comply with. So I hope that explains why there isn’t a specific definition in the Act. It is not necessary.

290. I think there was a point raised as to these powers being outside the scope of the Bill, by reference to the long title, but of course the long title doesn’t define what the powers are in a bill and, of course, the long title ends with the words, ‘And/or connected purposes.’ So the existence of this Clause 51 power, which puts bills of this type into the same category as development consent procedures under the Planning Act, is not unusual in any respect.

291. Clause 52 was raised and the question about damages. There are a number of restrictions on the use of these powers. 52 deals with exercise of the rights of entry. I’ve dealt with some of them in relation to the points made by the School earlier on. Section – Clause 52(5) does provide a right to recover for damages caused to the land or property, and I think a question was raised, and I hope I can answer it, about sub-clause (6) which talks about entitlement to compensation being determined in accordance with part 1 of the Land Compensation Act. That is setting out a procedural mechanism by

which, if there’s a dispute about the compensation payable, it goes to the tribunal for determination in accordance with those procedures, and they’re procedurals set out in the Land Compensation Act of 1961.

292. I think I’ve answered the key points that were raised about Clause 51, and the concerns about it. It’s the ability for the Secretary of State to alter the 500 metres regarding the proposed route of the line. It again - there’s nothing unusual about that. But could I just make this point; I think there was concern about the way in which these powers could be used, for example, in relation to the West Coast Main Line. There are already existing powers that Network Rail has itself for rights of entry, and those are in Section 71 of the British Railways Act (1981). So those powers of rights of entry already exist for Network Rail.

293. I’ll try and deal with the other points. Insofar as the Exceptional Hardship Scheme is concerned, I’m not – I hope I don’t need to repeat myself, but I’ve taken the Committee to the reasons why the Exceptional Hardship Scheme is being introduced in the decision, the public balance decision which has been made as to why it is an Exceptional Hardship Scheme at this stage. I just wanted to respond to this notion that there’s some decision that’s been made on Fradley to Crewe. I’ve already indicated that there isn’t such a decision, and what the petitioners referred to in the petition response document, that it was currently the government’s intention to authorise the extension of HS2 to Crewe and beyond by means of a hybrid bill, all that was responding to was making it clear that the intention is to proceed, if a decision is made, to go by the hybrid bill route rather than attempt to do it through a Transport and Works Act order, and that was in response, as the petitioners will see, to the specific concern that had been raised about the Clause 50 of the Bill which allows certain things to be done by way of Transport and Works Act order as I’ve previously discussed. So put it in the proper context, it’s not announcing a decision, it’s merely making it clear what routes would be used for the different parts of the infrastructure, and…

294. CHAIR: And I think it highly unlikely that if Phase 1 is done by this process, for all its good and ills, that you can get away with doing any further phases without having a similar process.

295. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Well, and that is really what was stated to the

petitioner: the intention would be to go by way of a hybrid bill. So far as the route details are concerned, of course I reiterate what we’ve already said; that is a matter for Phase 2 and no doubt all of the points that the petitioners have made about the special area of conservation and the equivalent salt marsh that they have referred to in their own documents, will need to be considered carefully by those responsible for Phase 2 and making any decision. But it’s plainly inappropriate for me, and it’s not within the remits of this Committee to make any judgments about those decisions which have yet to be made. Unless I can help you further on any of those other points.

296. CHAIR: No.

297. MR COOK: Chair, I can just come back if I may. As we alluded to earlier, the response from the Promoters to our petitions did not include those details. Only details of legislation where such powers were used. So clearly, from what’s been said now, we’ll go back and have a look at that and may, in due course, make another submission when we’re done rather than doing it off the top of the head now. I’d like time to research it. I would like to ask about the HS2 early access agreement for survey purposes. Whether or not that is still in force?

298. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): The early access agreement – survey agreement – was a mechanism used in order to try and agree access, in the absence of any powers to enable that. Under this clause, if it goes ahead, there’ll be an obligation to use all reasonable attempts, as I’ve indicated, to obtain consent to enter the land. That will obviously be a matter of fact and degree for the relevant decision maker to decide whether reasonable attempts have been made and, of course, as part of that no doubt discussions will occur about financial compensation, if that’s the right word. Some financial arrangement. No doubt those can be part of the discussions. Whether it’s appropriate in every case depends upon the nature of the access being sought.

299. MR COOK: Certainly that access document originally had a table of compensation and costs on the back, which we believe should be enforced. Coming on to the suggestion around, we’re alluding to, that this route has been decided. Very eloquently have commented in terms of what the response to our petition. However, I come back to the House of Commons Library note, which says, ‘HS2 will be delivered in two distinct phases.’ Doesn’t say it’s proposed it will be. It says it, ‘Will be

delivered’ and then talks about Crewe. A station at Crew, which again, as we’ve alluded to, suggests to us that the decision has been made.

300. CHAIR: I would just point out the library are very good in producing notes, but they’re not the government or even parliament, and I don’t – I mean – we ll we ’ ll s ee what the next government decides what it wants to do. There’s no – it doesn’t preclude them breaking the Bill up into chunks to do.

301. MR MEARNS: Or cancelling it altogether.

302. CHAIR: Or cancelling it altogether.

303. MR COOK: I’d also, if I may, just make one final observation, and that was in terms of something that I heard yesterday where one of the reasons around not affording compensation around safeguarding was that if properties were bought before the route had been determined, on that route, in fact it may lead to – because money had been spent, that route actually becoming the route as oppose to anything else, because of the money that had been spent there. I think I’ve – hopefully I’ve summed that up.

304. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I was reading from the government’s decision document on –

305. MR COOK: Yes.

306. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): …for Phase 2 Exceptional Hardship Scheme.

307. MR COOK: I’d just like to say that I disagree with that statement, as you might not be surprised to hear. HS2 have made a strategic decision in terms of what they do with properties that they purchase through the Exceptional Hardship Scheme or the Need to Sell Scheme as it is now, and that is that they will retain them, rent them, and no doubt, once the railroad is built, and if properties go back up, they will sell them close to, if not above, the original market value. The reality is properties such as the one Steve described, that was bought under the Exceptional Hardship Scheme in industry, if they’d have tried to sell that they would have been in exactly the same position as the rest of the community and would have lost about 25% of the value of the house. No issues with that. The correct decision with taxpayers money that clearly they should try and maximise it. If they had bought property on a proposed route, and

then the route is changed, that property will immediately become unblighted and go back to its market value, and therefore they could sell them without a loss. So we do not accept that that is a reason not to do so.

308. CHAIR: Sir Peter.

309. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: The only remaining issue, which is not a new one to us, is that to depersonalise it, were I to have bought a house 10 years ago for, say £500,000, were it to have gone up in value by, say, 25-30% over the last 10 years, and were I to be my sort of age, I’m 70, and I had children I wanted to support, and I didn’t want to go on living in this great big house, can that be sensibly a compelling reason to se ll?

310. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Well, I think what you’re identifying is potentially within starting to come within the categories that are identified as examples. The – which we looked at in more detail yesterday. There is still a need…

311. SIR P ETER BOTTOMLEY: And the EHS has an urgent Need to Sell…

312. MR S TRACHAN QC (DfT): Demonstrate that there’s an urgent Need to Sell. Yes, certainly, under the EHS scheme, and I hope I recognised yesterday that the EHS scheme, because of its criteria, isn’t going to allow, necessarily, those people who want to sell or want to move, to necessarily fall within the scope of the scheme, and that the criterion are more restricted. But the reasons for that are, as I’ve indicated, the balance that’s been made between – of course that will result in hardship for people, but a balance between balancing that hardship with the stage at which Phase 2 has reached so fa r.

313. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: We do understand it is to be expected that there will be a line for Phase 2 and, when that comes, then we can presume that the Need to Sell Scheme will come in, where someone has a Need to Sell over the next two or three years. The Exceptional Hardship Scheme, as I look at it, shows that if I have a Need to Sell urgently, which I would say was within a year or so rather than sort of three years, but if I say it is unreasonable for anyone to compel me to go on living there, as a broken down ex-MP without the fitness of a police officer or other sort of those better professions, that there could be a case to be considered under exceptional hardship?

You can say to someone, ‘You’re 70, you’re 75, you’re 80, you’re 85 any particular six months period, no you’re still able to manage’, while your children move from being post-university age to being pensioners themselves. There must come a stage where it becomes so unreasonable. Or is it like boiling a frog?

314. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Anything I said in relation to reading out paragraph 3.6.45 in the guidance document makes it clear that there are not exhaustive categories of case, and there is a requirement to have the urgent Need to Sell, but the different circumstances in which that translates into exceptional hardship will be looked at on an individual basis. There is available, I don’t know whether it helps, but there is available statistics in the same way as we had for the Phase 1 Exceptional Hardship Scheme for the Phase 2 Exceptional Hardship Scheme; number of applications have been made, numbers that have been accepted, which we can provide if it’s of interest to the Committee. I think I’ve got somewhere in one of the papers, but which indicates, from what I’ve seen, approximately 43 – I think it’s in the 40% success rate. So it is a scheme which, although it does have these criterion and they are, some will see it, considered to be quite strict, it is a scheme which is operating and properties are being purchased under the Exceptional Hardship Scheme in relation to Phase 2. No doubt for a variety of different reasons.

315. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I think we can take it – I don’t think we can properly take it further today, or it may be an issue we can properly turn to in an interim report. What we have in this example, just to remind myself, is one property was bought under an application for Exceptional Hardship. Two weren’t, because they didn’t qualify, and they took significant losses, and there’s one prospective one where there’s reasonable evidence that there would be a significant loss were the owner to sell now?

316. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes. I don’t – that’s what the examples you were shown. I don’t know whether those two that did sell at losses applied under EHS or, indeed, what their circumstances were, so I…

317. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I understand that.

318. MR COOK: I think, sir, that’s where the difficulties are, because most people know that they will not qualify under Exceptional Hardship, so they are not making the

applications.

319. CHAIR: I think the point that you and the other petitioners make, Mr Cook, as others have, is that for those on Phase 2, because of the length of time, it’s actually quite important, if the railway’s going to be built, that the route is decided and the compensation arrangements will then kick in. Tweaked, amended, checked whatever. Otherwise you are left in a quite disadvantaged situation for a long time.

320. MR COOK: Absolutely, Chair, and I think the averages for people moving house is every seven years or so.

321. CHAIR: Yes.

322. MR COOK: People are prisoners.

323. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: The only other thing I’d like to put on the record, it’s a totally separate point, is that for those who’ve been following our proceedings it’s probably sensible to point out that Pasturefields is about a mile to the north east of where you are. It’s not an enormous great distance between you two.

324. MR COOK: No, it’s not that far, yes. Yes.

325. CHAIR: Okay, thank you very much. Thank you for your contribution. Right, we now move to Mr Duncan Mackenzie. Good morning, Mr Mackenzie, thank you for waiting.

Mr Duncan Mackenzie

326. MR MACKENZIE: You’re very welcome, thank you. Can I just say that I am very excited to be here? I’m a maths teacher at Polesworth School in Warwickshire, near Tamworth, and we’re required to teach citizenship increasingly amongst the things that we’re asked to instruct our pupils on, our charges, and what better way could I graphically illustrate that by taking part in the passage of a bill through Parliament. So genuinely thrilled to be here.

327. MR BELLINGHAM: What a pity your class isn’t here to listen to you.

328. MR MACKENZIE: Sorry?

329. MR BELLINGHAM: I said what a pity your class isn’t here to listen to you. But maybe that can see it…

330. MR MACKENZIE: Parliament TV, Hansard – we can illustrate this quite amply, thank you. My petition included points about noise and the fact that our roads aren’t up to construction traffic, which HS2 Ltd have kindly answered in their response document with reference to all sorts of codes and practices and standard, and provided those standards are rigidly adhered to, and that there are, you know, consequences if they’re breached, I don’t think that it’s valuable for the Committee to listen to me talk about them. So I will gloss over that if that’s okay with you?

331. CHAIR: Okay.

332. MR MACKEN ZIE: Okay. Great, okay. Now if you’d just like to put P5023 up, which is my – is where I live in context to the line, so just to try and put into context where I’m coming from with this bill. Appear any second, I’m sure.

333. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Well, I’m afraid to disappoint you about that. There appears to be a problem that this particular plan isn’t on the system.

334. MR MACKENZIE: I’m mortified.

335. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I wonder whether I – there might be an equivalent – let me just see if I can…

336. MR MACKENZIE: Maybe into my pack, find something

337. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Can we get 5024?

338. MR MACKENZIE: We can proceed without it. It’s not…

339. CHAIR: We’re getting another map up, so…

340. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): It’s a slightly different plan than you have, but I’m going to get it put up on screen.

341. MR MACKENZIE: There’s Handsacre; I’m here. So I’m in the first parish on the line on Phase 2. Which puts us in quite a unique position, I think, in that the end of Phase 1 points at us…

342. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): I’m just showing it on the plan now. You’re just there, aren’t you?

343. MR MACKENZIE: That’s it, yes.

344. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Excellent.

345. MR MACKENZIE: So yes, and you can see where Handsacre and where it splits off and Phase 1 becomes Phase 2. Now it puts us in quite a unique position, because irrespective of the route changing up the line, it can’t go anywhere else other than through my community, assuming Phase 2 gets built. So we do feel quite sensitive about being allowed to participate in a Phase 1 consultation. Further than that, we’re not actually sure where Phase 1 ends, and to illustrate that I’d like to use two of the packs that are in Phase 2’s standard exhibit packs. If you could put up P4895 please. Is that it? Yes.

346. I don’t know if you can zoom in on this, but if you focus around Handsacre, whic h is – yes, that’s where you are. Now you’ll see the blue line coming up is Phase 1 and, where it feeds into the dotted line, that’s the West Coast Main Line and that is Handsacre. Now if you contrast that with, two slides on from this, P4897, and just do the same thing, zooming in on Handsacre, you’ll notice that it’s not the same. Now that spur is two miles long, and it’s not – if I can just put it into context, where you find these maps, if you Google any route of HS2, you’ll get condition 1 where there is no spur. But in the 55,000 pages of documentation that accompanied the Hybrid Bill, that’s where you find this sort of thing. I’m surprised that HS2 Ltd have been so sloppy as to actually put in front of the Committee, in their own documentation.

347. Now we’re not just talking about a bit of hardcore in a field when they’re proposing to build this, and there are detailed maps which I’ve actually got exhibits for, which are the detailed things from the stuff in the Hybrid Bill which are on A922, which show this in much greater detail. This is, as I say, it’s two miles of…

348. CHAIR: Sorry, carry on.

349. MR MACKENZIE: This is the teacher in me. Don’t talk while I’m talking.

350. CHAIR: Chuck a chalk at him.

351. MR MEARNS: But not a blackboard rubber.

352. MR MACKENZIE: He’s removed himself from the lesson. It’s what I would have done. You’ve – sorry – so two miles of Phase 1 is or isn’t there depending on which map you look at, and the concern that I’ve got is that ten years from now, when they actually come to start building Phase 1 – well, maybe not 10 years, but they won’t be referring back to some maths teacher talking to a committee, they’ll be looking into what’s included in the legislation, and I’m genuinely concerned that if that gets built we end up with a completely unnecessary slight, blight, on our landscape and threat to our community in terms of the blight that it causes. One of the joys of being a maths teacher is that you can’t help but start dividing big numbers by other big numbers to try and put things into context, and if you divide the cost of HS2 by the number of miles it covers, you come up with a figure round about £143 million per mile. That’s two miles of it. Now, I assume…

353. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: While we’re listening, could we zoom out a bit just so we don’t have such a blur in front of us?

354. MR MACKENZIE: If you want to, yes.

355. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Thank you.

356. MR MACKENZIE: You’re listening to me rather than looking at the pictures.

357. MR THORNTON: So £140…

358. MR MACKENZIE: So £143 million per mile and this, as I say, is not just a bit of hardcore in a field. This takes the route over one of our main arteries locally, the A515, and it does so on a large viaduct. Now, if Phase 2 gets cancelled, that’s a viaduct that goes into a field. Which will probably become legendary as Cameron’s Folly or what have you. But it causes us real problems in terms of blight, and I assume that the miles that include large viaducts are the more expensive miles compared to other miles on the road. So this is an awful lot of tax that they’re being a bit vague about, and that’s incredibly disappointing when you live where I live.

359. It’s two miles. If they were to sneak another two miles in then I – and it’s unfortunate we couldn’t put my context exactly in there, I would very definitely be on

Phase 1, and we’ve been excluded from all of the consultation processes on Phase 1. Purely because we didn’t know about this until Phase 2 was announced in January 2013. Now I don’t know how many of the Gunning Principles that breaches, but I’m pretty sure it must do. Now, property blight on Phase 2 is very real, and it’s very real when you’re at the start of the route. Because, as I say, if there’s some debate about the course of the line further up the line, there is absolutely no doubt that we’re going to be massively affected by it. Now I have no intention to sell my house at the moment. I’ve got five children, age between 9 and 17, and we’re staying put for the time being. However, my near neighbour, Mrs Barnett, had sold her house in around about Christmas 2013 and, on January 30th, the buyers pulled out of that purchase because, specifically because, of the announcement of the Phase 2 route, and she still hasn’t been able to sell her house.

360. Now, Mrs Barnett knows about this consultation process. We asked her to put a petition in so that she could come and talk about it, but she found the whole process of writing her petition so upsetting that she didn’t do it, and she would have been thoroughly intimidated by this particular process, and I know that’s something that you’re not trying to cause. But obviously she knows about the Exceptional Hardship Scheme and she’s read it, and she’s excluded herself from it because her children have left home, they’ve gone to university, and she’s now in a position where she simply wants to downsize, and she has ruled herself out of the Exceptional Hardship Scheme because she’s read it and says, ‘But I don’t need to urgently sell my home.’ How can that happen to Mrs Barnett? How can we end up in a situation where, you know, a government associated organisation can issue documents and legislation and fall back on the existing Land Compensation Scheme and put somebody like her in that position? She’s, you know, she gives freely of her time. She’s the sort of person who delivers the parish magazine…

361. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Forgive me for asking a question during the lesson. Do we understand she wanted to have gone and she wishes to be gone, and she wasn’t able to and for two years she’s been unable to go?

362. MR MACKENZIE: Yes.

363. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: And she’d want to go?

364. MR MACKENZIE: Yes.

365. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I don’t see how that disqualifies her from making an application that it’s urgent that she can have her house purchased.

366. MR MACKENZIE: Because the Exceptional Hardship Scheme tells you everything you need to know about it in its title. Exceptional Hardship. And she interprets that, as do loads of people –

367. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Sorry, I –

368. MR MACKENZIE: – on P hase 2 as she doesn’t qualify for it.

369. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: I’m a very good pupil. I heard that bit the first time you said it, and understood it. Would it be sensible for her to be advised to apply, making the grounds that for two years she’s been stuck in a home she doesn’t want to be in? She’d be keen to go. She was just about to have sold it, and her reasons for selling were as good as they were when she actually would have gone through with it. So she’s clearly established, you know, she wanted to go, she needed to go, she still needs to go, will they please apply to take her home?

370. MR MACKENZIE: Yes, individually I think that’s very good…

371. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Will you give her that advice?

372. MR MACKENZIE: Yes, I certainly will. But the point is that she’s not the only person on the Phase 2 route to be thinking along those lines, and you have the power to change the legislation that governs the compensation scheme, and it would be nice to think that you would consider including a specific compensation scheme for HS2 in the legislation that’s put before a third reading. Advocates of HS2 often tell us that it’s 150 years since we built a major railway in this country. Well, surprise, surprise – that means there’s never been a compensation scheme that’s fit for purpose for building a railway. The Land Compensation Scheme is what, 1973? That’s over 42 years old and the world has moved on. Socially, in terms of all sorts of aspects, and it needs reviewing. It really does need reviewing. My own perspective on this – as I said, I’ve got no interest in selling my home at the moment, and it may be a bit of a shock to sort of the increasingly London-centric view of property prices…

373. MR MEARNS: I don’t share that, by the way.

374. MR MACKENZIE: Excellent, I’m glad to hear it, Mr Mearns. Of far more concern to me is the impact that it will have on my time. As I say, I live where I live, which is on the route up to Manchester. I work at Polesworth, which is on the route up to Leeds, and on my way to work I cross the route of HS2 four times. Four times. And it’s a 20 year project. That’s twice at my end, once in the middle depending on whether I cross the A5 or the A51, it affects both of them, and then once at Polesworth, and the route at Polesworth goes over Junction 10 of the M42 and it’s probably going to move the motorway.

375. MR MEARNS: I’m not after correcting you, Mr Mackenzie, but I think it’s fair to put on record – because you’ve mentioned the date of 1973, and you mentioned not building any major railways in the last 150 years. I would – the Channel Tunnel Rail Link is a good example. Crossrail is another pretty good example.

376. MR MACKEN ZIE: I was quoting advocates of HS2. That’s the line that they’re happy to use when it suits them. So of far more importance to me is the time that it’s going to cost me. I find myself preparing lessons usually until midnight, and my day starts at 6 o'clock in the morning when I walk my dogs. If I’ve got to spend half an hour a day sat in traffic because one of the four junctions with my route to work is affected, then you’re going to kill me, you know, and I would like the same principles that the HS2 business case is built on, which is time is money, the entire HS2 business case is justified on the basis of people saving time, that they will be doing useful work in, and it’s calculated at a rate of £70,000 an hour. Rifkind Rates if you would like to use that little vernacular, and there are all sorts of ways in which people are compensated by their time. Salary is a compensation for your time, you know. Mr Higgins is compensated at a rate of £600,000 of tax every year for the time that HS2 absorbs in his day.

377. Now, clearly, we wouldn’t want that applying over that. But, you know, as a fa irly simple maths teacher, I would like compensating for the time that HS2 is going to steal of my time left on earth. And that isn’t covered in any compensation scheme. There’s all sorts of things which were submitted, I am sure, into the property consultations, but our experience with putting stuff into consultations is you never hear

anything about it again. It’s over a year since the route consultation on Phase 2, for example. Lots of things were put into the compensation scheme consultations, which have just been ignored, and I know that there have been judicial reviews and all sorts of things, and I know that the judges found it so far as to be illegal, but all HS2 have actually done around is tweak around the edges on the building of the compensation scheme.

378. Now, I don’t for a second think that HS2 have an evil people recruitment policy – that sounds like they may be disagreeing with me, so I’m not encouraged by that – but there’s – what they’re doing is referring back to the law, and the law says you have to compensate people on the basis of property and property only, and it applies arbitrary things like distance from the line in order to try and evaluate the actual cost effects on peoples’ property. Now that’s obviously a debate in itself. But the properties, the compensation scheme is not fit for purpose for Phase 2 people. I’ll move on.

379. Now, Andrew McNaughton appeared in front of – Professor McNaughton appeared in front of the Committee a couple of weeks ago, to explain how HS2 frees up capacity by taking high speed long distance traffic off all of the West Coast Main Line tracks so they can be freed up for – so it frees up, you know, extra capacity and all of that argument. Now I came here this morning on a train from Lic hfie ld. Peak rate, thanks for that. I’m probably one of the few people in the room who won’t be able to claim that back on some sort of expenses scheme, but there we go, and it’s a fantastic service. It took 70 minutes from Lichfield to Euston. Now the only reason that we get that service is because one of the trains from Manchester stops, once an hour I think, to pick people up from Lichfield, and Tamworth’s in the same situation. I’m assuming places like Nuneaton are, Coventry probably on the route down from Birmingham on the other line.

380. But if what Professor McNaughton’s saying is correct, when Phase 1 is built those trains stop. They stop. Because the high speed trains will come down, they’ll get onto the line at Handsacre, and they’ll bypass Lichfield and Tamworth and Nuneaton and what have you, and that means that the government is spending £50 billion worth of tax in the knowledge that our train services are going to be worse. Now I think, Sir Peter you made a point – or was it Mr Bellingham, I’m not so sure, somebody made a point about the – no, it wasn’t it was Jeremy Lefroy, on this side of the table. Jeremy Lefroy

made a point about if the Handsacre Junction isn’t built, then there will be impact on the prosperity of areas like Stoke on Trent and Stone and the places further up the line. Irrespective of Handsacre disappearing – or if Handsacre stays where it is, Lichfield, in terms of the way that the business case is justified, must be worse off, because we know we’re going to get a worse train service. We know that. I raised this point in my petition, and it was responded to by saying that we have assurances that there will be broadly comparable services before and afterwards. Well I’m worried about what, ‘Broadly comparable’ means. You know, you can broadly compare a horse and cart with a Jaguar, and come to the conclusion that the Jaguar just does it a bit better. But you’ve broadly compared them, and broadly, if I can get on a train at Lichfield and it arrives at Euston after a couple of changes on the way, that’s a broadly comparable service.

381. So, specific request to the Committee: could you please build in, for the sake of the prosperity of the places that are bypassed on the way from Handsacre down to Euston, can you build in guarantees that our journey times to Euston – because we’re all desperate to get to London as quick as we can…

382. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Or back.

383. MR THORNTON: Get back as quick as you can.

384. MR MACKENZIE: Or, indeed, to Sheffield – and guarantee that those journey times will not be reduced, and I think…

385. MR MEARNS: You mean increased.

386. MR MACKENZIE: Pardon?

387. MR MEARNS: You mean increased. Those journey times would not be increased.

388. MR MACKENZIE: Yes. That would be good yes. Will not be – the speeds won’t be reduced, and I’m happy to finish my initial statement at that point.

389. CHAIR: Right, thank you very much, Mr Mackenzie. Mr S trachan. Can you answer the point firstly about the end of the railway in P hase 1?

390. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes, the position about the location of Phase 1 and where it ends is set out in the Bill plans for the Bill. They’re also set out in the Environmental Statement, which tracks the Bill plans and, of course, that is – the Environmental Statement is what people have had the opportunity to express views upon, part of the consultation process, and, if necessary, we’ll get it up on screen. But that shows clearly the extent of the Phase 1 works. Where the spurs end, and the spurs, in this case, the Manchester spur that’s being referred to, the spur is generally speaking one or two hundred metres long, and it’s only there – it’s designed in a way to ensure that if those spurs go ahead there’s no disruption to the Phase 1 line.

391. I think otherwise – I probably use the wrong term, but passive provision. It enables the spurs to, if approval’s given for those spurs to connect up, but without preventing the continuation of the existing Phase 1 line. So the plans have been put up. In fact, this plan was just announcing in 2013 the proposal for Phase 2. It’s not purporting to set out what the proposal is for Phase 2. Phase 1, sorry. But anyone interested in Phase 1 has had the Bill plans and, when the Bill, if it passes into law, it will contain the Bill plans setting out precisely what is permitted under Phase 1. So I hope that clarifies the position.

392. MR MACKENZIE: Sorry, Mr Chair, but I would say that A922 is an HS2 document and it was Dr Shepperson who presented to you back in October, November, A922 is a map that is currently under the legislation and it takes it over the A515 on a viaduct.

393. CHAIR: Do you have a map of the end of the route, the end of Phase 1?

394. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): Yes, I’ve got the Environmental Statement. Can you get CT06127, and it’s CFA 22, volume 2.

395. MR MACKENZIE: There are subsequent slides after that, which show it in massive detail.

396. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): If you’d just like to scroll through the next three or four. Yes, I think these are plans you’re referring to are subject – were the subject of consultation, property consultation in 2013. What’s obviously important for the Committee and for those who are affected by Phase 1 is what the Bill plans that have

been promoted through parliament and the Environmental Statement which accompanies it, and shows. Because those show what is sought to be enacted by way of an Act and passed into law, and that’s what I was showing you on the other…was trying to show you.

397. MR MACKENZIE: Well I would say that they’re all – all of those are your maps. All of them, and they just don’t agree with each other, and it’s less than two miles from my community, and it’s blighting us.

398. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): They are all our maps, but they’re there for different purposes, and if one’s consulting for property compensation purposes one may consult on a proposal. But what is critical, and I emphasise this for anyone affected by Phase 1, is what the Bill shows, the Bill plans, and what’s assessed for environmental purposes. And those are the – that’s the document I’m trying to get up on screen for you, just to show that particular link. Here we go. We’ve got the construction phase, but the operational – there we go – that is the – taken with the Bill plan, but I’ve only got the Environmental Statement here. And the Bill, the definitive Bill plan, matches what’s shown there. But that shows the extent, if the Bill is enacted and passes into an Act, the extent of the Phase 1 permitted works.

399. MR MACKENZIE: Mr Chair, that’s probably okay for the people who are building it, but what’s critical, for somebody who’s property is blighted, such as Mrs Barnett, is the maps that people who are potentially buying a property in our community can find, and they can find it with HS2’s logo on the bottom of it, and it tells them that it goes over the 515.

400. CHAIR: Alright, good point.

401. MR STRACHAN QC (DfT): There were a number of other issues raised about compensation. I’ve responded in respect of compensation. Could I just make this point: a lot of comparisons were drawn with what the law provides in terms of co mpe nsation as compared with that the petitioner would expect. The Exceptional Hardship Scheme that’s been introduced for Phase 2 is a discretionary scheme which goes beyond what the law requires. There is no requirement, as a matter of law, to provide compensation, but the Exceptional Hardship Scheme, as it’s explained in the decision document, goes beyond that. It’s a discretionary scheme’s been introduced

and, by the same token, the Committee in relation to Phase 1 has heard a lot about the discretionary schemes that are in operation. Those, too, go beyond what the law requires.

402. That doesn’t mean everyone’s going to be content, but I just make the point that there already is compensation beyond that which the law would require, and train services and freeing up capacity, I just refer you back to what Professor McNaughton explained, in some detail, as to the way in which HS2 would free up capacity on the pre-existing lines. The precise service arrangements are outside the control of HS2, but the critical thing is that HS2 enables greater capacity on those lines, in the way that Professor McNaughton described, with the opportunities that brings for those situated on those lines, in addition to the ability to travel on HS2 itself. Depending on where you live, of course. But I don’t think it’s necessary for me to go over that. Professor McNaughton illustrated that with some illustrative timetables as the Committee will recall. Illustrative being the operative word, because those are matters for future dec is ion making.

403. MR MACKENZIE: Okay, Mr Chair, I will just say in response to that is that that answer has come from the wrong person, effectively, because what Mr Strachan has just said is that we’re not – this is beyond our control, we are just doing what the law tells us to do and, left to their own devices, they will do what they can do within what the law tells them, to their benefit, rather than the people who you are representing, which is people like Mrs Barnett, and that’s an organisation that needs the law to guide them what they should be doing, and the only way they’re going to do that is if you can exercise your powers to amend the Bill to make sure that that happens, because more or less what he said was, ‘Yes, you’ve probably got a point, but we don’t have to do that. So we’re not going to’ and you have the power to make…

404. CHAIR: Parliament has given us a range of instructions which, essentially, is to deal with petitioning to go with railway between London and Birmingham. The building of that opens up opportunities, and clearly that is for Network Rail and Rail Franchising to do and do another day. We’re not going to redesign the whole of the rail system, we’re just dealing with this particular line. The issue of current services from Lichfield, from Coventry, has come up with petitioners. I mean Coventry C ity Council, a lot of them are very concerned with this.

405. MR MACKENZIE: I’m sure they are.

406. CHAIR: So it’s not going to go away. It’s just that we’re not specifically tasked with dealing with that. That part of the jigsaw appears another day, but it is something – what this project is doing isn’t precluding – and it shouldn’t make things worse for people, it should give an opportunity for more services, if it works, and I’m sure it will be working.

407. MR MACKENZIE: Okay, I mean, obviously I have to accept what you’re saying, but if that’s the case then we’re just expected to absorb that deterioration in the quality of our services and, if fair and consistent principles are going to be employed across the board, then MPs need to note that they’re voting on that basis by it being reflected in the business case, and I don’t believe that it is at the moment.

408. CHAIR: You’re making a presumption the service is going to get worse, and you might be right. But the intent is to increase capacity, and – because West Coast Main Line is filling up, and by building this we can take intercity lines straight through, and that frees up capacity on West Coast Main Line. But as I say, it’s for other people to determine that, and there’s a lot of vested interests, that’s why the county councils, that’s why the city councils, lots of rail user groups, that will try and take advantage of the fact that there may be further opportunities.

409. MR MACKEN ZIE: Okay, if I can just put one last slide up, just to illustrate that point, probably stronger. A915, which is HS2’s missive to the people who live between Fradley and Rugeley. Listed under, ‘Opportunities’ there they tell us that the opportunity for us will be to get the train into New Street, walk across town to Curzon Street, and then benefit from a faster, more frequent service to London. It takes 70 minutes to get from Lichfield to Euston, and I proved that to myself this morning. It takes half an hour to get from Lichfield to New Street; it’s a 15, 20 minute walk across to Curzon Street…

410. MR MEARNS: No, it’s not.

411. MR MACKENZIE: Platform to platform…

412. CHAIR: Depends whether you’re carrying bags.

413. MR MACKENZIE: 7 years old with a big suitcase…

414. MR MEARNS: We reckon 8 to 10.

415. MR MACKENZIE: It’s a 10 minute walk across Birmingham from New Street…

416. MR MEARNS: We’ve done it. That’s what I’m saying.

417. MR MACKENZIE: It’s 30 minutes to get in – but the point…

418. CHAIR: Yes, you’re making the point and we had a number of petitioners from Coventry who said that the train journey was very good coming in from Coventry and they couldn’t see the need.

419. MR MEARNS: We sympathise with the point, but don’t like the pun right, okay?

420. MR THORNTON : To be fair, you do have to have about five minutes spare, don’t you Ian, otherwise you might miss the train, so you do have to add that five minutes timing in.

421. MR MACKENZIE: Absolutely, and it’s the change. And you’re carrying a bag, and it’s Birmingham, so it’s raining.

422. CHAIR: I thought I’d heard everything. You have made an original point about the journey time that you might be if you’re crossing HS2 four times going to work on the train, the impact that may have on your journey time and lost time of your life. That was a good point.

423. MR MACKEN ZIE: And I worked on the train on the way here today, because I’ve got four lessons to deliver this morning, and I shall be working on the train on the way home, and I’m hoping to get an answer to a question because, as I say, as a maths teacher it’s very difficult not to illuminate your lessons with real life examples, and if you divide £50 billion of tax, divided by a nurses salary for £25,000 for example, you come up with the slightly alarming figure of 2 million years worth of nursing that is the equivalent…

424. MR THORNTON: That’s a long time for someone to nurse.

425. MR MACKENZIE: Well you make a fair point. If you were to count to 50

billion – just a little, you’re a Thornton, you look like you were a diligent student, let’s see. If you were to count to 50 billion, would you get there before Phase 1’s built, after Phase 1’s built, or after Phase 2’s built?

426. CHAIR: Never.

427. MR THO RNTON: I think I’d get there pretty close to when the earth is no longer habitable.

428. MR MACKENZIE: It’s a big number. It’s 5 times 10 to the power…

429. SIR PETER BO TTOMLEY: You have raised an interesting question as to which areas may have a worse rail service to London, and that’s an issue which we have considered in the past, and we may be able to consider in the future, but thank you for that and, given that you’ve got some work to do, when this session’s formally over, I’m going to leave you three questions for your pupils. You probably know them, but they may not.

430. MR MACKENZIE: I’ll ask you ones in return, if that’s okay. Oh you’re passing me that.

431. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: Don’t read it now.

432. MR MACKENZIE: No, I won’t. I promise that I will read that and, in return, I promised a young man called Evan Pearce, who may well end up as the Prime Minister one day, and possibly a rhetorical question, but, ‘Can’t we just cure cancer instead?’

433. MR THORNTON: Well we’re curing cancer all over the place.

434. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: That’s an ‘and’ rather than ‘or’ question.

435. MR THORNTON: I think we’re curing cancer all over the place at the moment.

436. MR MACKENZIE: I promised to ask you.

437. CHAIR: How old is the gentleman?

438. MR MACKENZIE: He’s year 8, so he’s 13 ish.

439. CHAIR: Okay, thank you very much indeed. Thank you for that then.

440. MR MACKENZIE: Thank you.

441. CHAIR: Right, I think we’re going to take the next two petitions this afternoon, because we’re about to run out of time. So 2.00 p.m. Order, order.