PUBLIC SESSION MINUTES OF ORAL EVIDENCE taken before HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE On the HIGH SPEED RAIL (LONDON – WEST MIDLANDS) BILL Tuesday 15 December 2015 (Afternoon) In Committee Room 5 PRESENT: Mr Robert Syms (Chair) Mr Henry Bellingham Sir Peter Bottomley Mr David Crausby Mr Mark Hendrik _____________ IN ATTENDANCE Mr Timothy Mould QC, Lead Counsel, Department for Transport Mr Richard Turney, Counsel Department for Transport WITNESSES Sir Keir Starmer QC MP Mr Robert Latham Ms Annabel Leventon and Ms Katherine Sykes Mr Richard Percival Mr Jeffrey Travers Ms Silvia Ranawake Mr Simon Neave Mr Keith Wallace Mr Martin Nelson and Ms Alice Gray Mr Anthony Hallgarten Mr John Emanuel Mr Gervais Williams Mr Richard Cotton and Ms Patricia Callaghan Mr David Roberts Ms Judith Hillman and Mr Conall Macfarlane _____________ IN PUBLIC SESSION INDEX Subject Page HS2 Euston Action Group Submissions by Sir Keir Starmer 4 Response from Mr Mould 14 Closing submissions by Sir Keir Starmer 18 Darwin Court Residents’ and Leaseholders’ Association Submissions by Ms Leventon 19 Response from Mr Turney 29 Closing submissions by Ms Sykes 33 Golamead Limited Submissions by Mr Percival 34 Response from Mr Turney 37 Closing submissions by Mr Percival 39 Jeffrey Travers Submissions by Mr Travers 40 Response from Mr Turney 47 Closing submissions by Mr Travers 48 Silvia Ranawake Submissions by Ms Ranawake 49 Simon Neave Submissions by Mr Neave 53 Response from Mr Turney 58 Kenneth and Margaret Fulford, and others Submissions by Mr Wallace 58 Jonathan Digby and Susanne Kaiser Submissions by Mr Digby 59 Response from Mr Mould 61 Martin Nelson and others Submissions by Ms Gray 63 Submissions by Mr Nelson 68 Response from Mr Mould 71 John Emanuel and Rosemary Emanuel Submissions by Mr Emanuel 73 Anthony Hallgarten et al Submissions by Mr Hallgarten 75 Response from Mr Mould 83 2 Gervais Williams and Miranda Glossop Submissions by Mr Williams 85 Response from Mr Strachan 92 Patricia Callaghan and others Submissions by Ms Callaghan and Mr Cotton 93 Response from Mr Strachan 96 David Roberts and others Submissions by Mr Roberts 97 Response from Mr Strachan 99 Friends of Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill Submissions by Ms Hillman and Mr Macfarlane 100 Response from Mr Strachan 106 3 (At 14.00) 1. CHAIR: Order, order. Welcome to the HS2 Select Committee for our afternoon session. On Monday we heard locus challenges to a number of AP4 petitioners from Lappetts Lane and King’s Lane in South Heath. AP4 massively benefits South Heath and the Chilterns. Any dis-benefits will be minor. Petitioners conceded that point principally. They are still bothered by the Bill scheme but we’ve already dealt with Bill Petitions. We will hear about, for instance, traffic changes caused by AP4 from other petitioners including Bucks County Council and Chiltern District Council. We’ve therefore decided that none of the petitioners should have locus. In January we will need persuading other AP4 petitioners whose locus has been challenged suffered a genuine adverse issue with AP4 that will not be more effectively dealt with through local authority and other representative body petitions. 2. We now go to Keir Starmer. Welcome. HS2 Euston Action Group 3. SIR KEIR STARMER QC: Thank you very much, Chair. Can I just begin by thanking the Committee for excusing me last week and allowing me to present this week instead which is much appreciated by me and my family? Thank you very much. She’s out of hospital and on the mend. Thank you very much. 4. The Committee has heard from me twice already. This third set of submissions is in relation to compensation and technically it forms part of the HS2 Euston Action Group submissions. You had a script last week and some slides last week and as I’ve done before I will treat them as already forming part of the record. I’ll assume that the document itself is in the record therefore the detail is there and I don’t need to go through it slavishly here. What I would like to do is develop a number of arguments of a general nature about compensation technically on behalf of the HS2 Euston Action Group. But because they’re of a general nature, they do apply to other petitioners including some of the petitioners who are here before the Committee today. And discussions with those other petitioners, what I’ve suggested to them is, insofar as they want to adopt these submissions that they just indicate that to the Committee without repeating them so long as that is a course the Committee is content to adopt. 4 5. I am aware the Committee heard a great deal of detailed evidence over the last two or three weeks in relation to compensation. And again I won’t repeat that detail. 6. Can I start with a number of core submissions? Back on 20 November 2014, the Select Committee received a presentation from the HS2 Action Alliance on compensation. That largely related to rural areas and the merits of the Property Bond scheme. We understand that the Committee is monitoring the operation of the current schemes and has not ruled out the possibility of direct implementation of a Property Bond scheme if improvements are not forthcoming. But it was the underlying aim that the Committee identified of the scheme that we wish at this early stage to highlight and the Committee identified the primary aim of the scheme as being to give, and I quote: ‘Residents the confidence to stay, ensuring continuity and coherence within their communities’. And that is particularly apt in Euston because, as the Committee will no doubt be aware, so far as compensation is concerned the real focus of concerns by communities, by businesses is on the period of construction and disruption. With some obvious exceptions, by and large after any period of construction it is accepted that there are unlikely to be ongoing needs for compensation and mitigation. In other words, that once the works are through the position in that part of North London, with some exceptions, will not lead to losses for these petitioners. But that does make that principle of giving people the confidence to stay with continuity and coherence within their communities the core principle from these petitioners’ point of view. 7. May I then outline the principles which were set out in our document which we say should underpin any compensation package? And they’re three short points. The first is that compensation should be assessed and paid under a scheme which is fair and proportionate and arrived at by a process which gives proper weight to the interests of all affected by the scheme. The second principle we submit should underpin any compensation package is that compensation should not only be grounded in property rights. It must reflect the wider rights which are undoubtedly affected by the HS2 scheme. And, as the Committee will have heard, long established communities will be destroyed; family and private life will be severely disrupted; and every conceivable type of pollution will affect the environment for many years. Now, to some extent, that principle I will develop when I get to the submissions I wish to make on the extent of the available schemes. And then, thirdly, probably as no surprise to the Committee, the 5 third principle which we say should underpin any compensation packages, there should be equity between those living in rural and urban areas. And what goes with that is that any disparate or different treatment must be objectively justified. 8. Now, those principles, by and large, are taken from the European Convention of Human Rights now incorporated into our law through the Human Rights Act. And there was an annex to the document submitted to the Committee last week which dealt with the position under the European Convention of Human Rights. Can I say this? That they also reflect common sense. And in our submission, they are also consistent with the broad principles outlined by the Secretary of State in his 2013 Consultation, which focussed on fairness, value for money, community cohesion, feasibility, efficiency and comprehensibility, functioning of housing market and the best balance between these criteria. And that is why, based on those underlying principles, these petitioners have always endorsed the proposal of the Fair Deal for London Alliance for an independent and impartial HS2 Compensation Commission, which should do two things. Firstly, draw up a fair compensation scheme and two, administer and determine applications for compensation. 9. There is one further core point which I think was touched on by petitioners last week, including Camden. And it arises directly as a result of AP3. And that is that the Secretary of State has failed to revisit the compensation to be offered to residents and businesses in light of the greater impact of AP3. All that’s been said so far is a statement by Robert Goodwill on 15 October this year outlining the AP3 provisions and depositing them. When he said: ‘By concentrating construction on certain locations at a time, disruption to the area as a whole at any one time will be reduced and easier to mitigate. Construction of the original Hybrid Bill proposal would have meant a far more intense period of disruption for the community. In the Euston area, as with all affected areas, we will continue to look for ways to reduce the level of disruption as part of the design development process’. Now, I touched on this last time I gave evidence to the Committee. And really make the same point, that so far as the communities are concerned and the businesses are concerned, the suggestion that prolonging the agony through AP3 is to their benefit is one that is not shared, to put it no higher than that.