Transport Committee
Oral evidence: HS2: progress update, HC 641
Wednesday 2 November 2022
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 2 November 2022.
Members present: Mr Ben Bradshaw (Chair); Jack Brereton; Chris Loder; Karl McCartney; Grahame Morris; Gavin Newlands; Greg Smith.
Questions 1–70
Witnesses
I: Kathleen Covill, Principal Specialist for Land Use (HS2), Natural England; Dr Rachel Giles, Evidence and Planning Programme Manager, Cheshire Wildlife Trust; and Rebecca Pullinger, Lead Policy Advocate for Planning, Woodland Trust.
Witnesses: Kathleen Covill, Dr Rachel Giles and Rebecca Pullinger.
Q1 Chair: This is one of our regular Transport Committee sessions looking at HS2. I am in the chair temporarily until the House of Commons has elected a replacement for Huw Merriman.
I welcome our first panel, who are going to be questioned on the environmental impact and mitigations of HS2. Could you introduce yourselves briefly, for the benefit of the audience watching and for members of the Committee?
Kathleen Covill: I am Kathleen Covill. I am Natural England’s principal adviser working with our HS2 advice team.
Dr Giles: I am Rachel Giles. I work for the Cheshire Wildlife Trust as its evidence and planning manager. I also do work for the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management on biodiversity net gain.
Rebecca Pullinger: Good morning. I am Rebecca Pullinger. I am the policy advocate for planning at the Woodland Trust.
Q2 Chair: Thank you. We will come on to a few of the details in a second, but I want to ask you a question of principle. Could we keep our questions and answers as brief as possible? In principle, are your organisations opposed to or supportive of HS2? Do you recognise the hierarchy of environmental impacts from transport, with rail being relatively low? Kathleen, can we start with you?
Kathleen Covill: Natural England is Government’s statutory adviser on the natural environment, so once a scheme has been given Government consent to proceed, we would not be in the space of objecting to it or not. Our role at this stage is about technical advice and reducing environmental impacts from the scheme as it evolves and goes into detailed design.
Dr Giles: In principle, the wildlife trusts are in favour of sustainable transport, but given the way HS2 is at the moment, with all the losses to the environment, we are against it in its current form.
Rebecca Pullinger: The Woodland Trust’s position is very similar to that of the wildlife trusts. We are supportive of the principle of high-speed rail, but, in its current form, there is too much damage to ancient woodland.
Chair: Great. We are going to start with woodlands, with my colleague Chris Loder.
Q3 Chris Loder: Good morning, ladies. It is good to have you with us.
I would like to start with you, Rebecca. We will then go through that way. My first question is: how much ancient woodland will be affected by the HS2 proposal?
Rebecca Pullinger: The impact on ancient woodlands is obviously a key concern for the Woodland Trust. As it stands, 129 ancient woodlands stand to be affected. Around 60 of those ancient woods will be affected through direct loss—the trees, the soils and other plants within the ancient woodland. A further 69 will be affected by indirect impacts. They are not necessarily directly on the path of HS2, but they are next to or near to the tracks.
Q4 Chris Loder: What exactly do you mean by indirect effect? I take it that they will not be felled.
Rebecca Pullinger: It is not about trees being felled. It is about all sorts of different types of impact: pollution—dust from the construction of HS2—the fragmentation of the ancient woodland, which affects wider habitats’ support of the wildlife that uses ancient woodlands, and vibrations as trains run through near ancient woodlands.
Q5 Chris Loder: So that we can put that into perspective, roughly what acreage or number of hectares are we talking about in its entirety?
Rebecca Pullinger: It is very difficult to provide an overall figure for the number of hectares of ancient woodland that will be affected. Unfortunately, HS2 does not consider indirect impacts when it provides the figures for the effect of HS2.
Q6 Chris Loder: Do you have any figure for the direct effect? If not, maybe you could let us know.
Rebecca Pullinger: We can certainly let you know.
Q7 Chris Loder: That will be very helpful. Rachel, do you have anything that you would like to add to that?
Dr Giles: Working for the Cheshire Wildlife Trust, I know about Cheshire. In Cheshire, we have 5 hectares of ancient woodland that will be directly impacted. Obviously, the figure is much greater than that along the entire route.
Q8 Chris Loder: Kathleen, I am not going to ask you, because I do not think that you can add anything to that. If you can, you are very welcome to do so.
Kathleen Covill: The figures that I have for direct impacts are 24 hectares for phase 1, 10 hectares for 2A and 6 hectares for 2B. The point that I would add concerns the definition of ancient woodland. It is areas that have been continuously wooded since 1600. What I was hoping to talk about briefly is the compensation side of things, which we may come on to. We have to be careful when we talk about compensation for ancient woodland.
Q9 Chris Loder: I would like to ask another question, starting with Rebecca. Are you of the opinion that HS2 has adequately addressed the concerns that you have raised with it?
Rebecca Pullinger: Not to date. It is notable that HS2 phase 2B, which is the most recent phase with an environmental statement, is the most impactful of the phases, with the most loss and damage to ancient woodland proposed per kilometre of route. That suggests that concerns about mapping and taking account of ancient woodland have not been adequately considered in these latter phases and that those lessons are not being learnt.
Q10 Chris Loder: Kathleen kindly shared with us the number of hectares we are talking about. In the grander scheme of things, if HS2 enables much more sustainable and environmentally friendly travel, do you not think that there is a net benefit with HS2 happening from what I think is a small impact in the relative context of overall woodland?
Rebecca Pullinger: As Kathleen noted, ancient woodlands are areas that have been continuously wooded since 1600. They are defined as an irreplaceable habitat. By definition, that means that you cannot fully compensate for that loss. Therefore, where ancient woodland is concerned, you cannot deliver an overall benefit for biodiversity.
Q11 Chris Loder: Rachel, are you of the view that HS2 has adequately addressed any concerns that you have raised?
Dr Giles: No, not at all. HS2 has spoken to the wildlife trusts. We are continually talking to people from HS2 and meet them regularly. We have been asking HS2 for a very long time to be more transparent with all the figures. They are putting out a lot of information about the no net loss figures. I do not know whether you have seen our report—I forwarded it to you all a couple of days ago—but we are finding that, certainly for woodland, they are overvaluing their compensation by about half. We have asked them to look again at the figures that they have published. We want them to remap all the habitats.
Q12 Chris Loder: Are you saying that HS2 does not actually answer your questions? When you ask them, do they really not answer the question, or do they just not give you the answers that you want to hear?
Dr Giles: They talk to us—they are really good at talking to us—but what we find is that the reassurances they give us are not being followed up properly.
Q13 Chris Loder: Are there any examples you would like to share of commitments that have not been followed up?
Dr Giles: Yes. For example, in the report we sent to you, we looked again at their no net loss figures. It took us four years to get that information. We were asking for it for that period of time, and they said that they would give it to us.
Q14 Chris Loder: Thank you. Kathleen?
Kathleen Covill: Where ancient woodland is concerned, there are areas where HS2 has responded very positively to points that we have put to them. I am thinking about the 2016 report that we did looking at their no net loss metric. One of the headline recommendations from that was that ancient woodland loss and compensation should come out of their metric; it was included at the time. HS2 responded to that and took it on board. We have seen the reduction in ancient woodland land in phase 1; due to detailed design, 3.4 hectares have avoided being impacted. That is very welcome. We want to see detailed design for 2A and 2B looking to reduce ancient woodland loss further.
Q15 Chris Loder: So that I understand it, are you saying that HS2 has responded adequately to the concerns that you have raised with them or not?
Kathleen Covill: The area where we would still like to see action is around avoiding loss of ancient woodland from temporary works. We have looked at the environmental statement for phase 2B, for example, and there is still impact.
Q16 Chris Loder: Are those the indirect things we were talking about?
Kathleen Covill: No. Those are direct impacts as well. I will come back to you with the figures on that.
Q17 Chris Loder: It would be useful for us to understand that, because it is quite an important point.
Kathleen Covill: It is very important. With a long linear scheme, you can understand that it cannot weave around particular woodlands, but we should not be seeing impacts on ancient woodland from temporary works.
Q18 Chris Loder: This is my final question before I hand back to the Chair. Rebecca, I will again start with you. Can you tell us whether HS2 discussed with you the creation of the HS2 Woodland Fund? That is a yes or no answer. If so, do you have a view on it that you would like to share?
Rebecca Pullinger: We have had discussions about the ancient Woodland Fund with HS2 and the Department for Transport. We are supportive of there being a fund. It is important that there is additional compensation on top of what is proposed by HS2 for woodland creation and ancient woodland restoration, but there are concerns about how it is evolving. The England Woodland Creation Offer that was established a couple of years ago provides a better incentive for landowners to use that fund, rather than the HS2 Woodland Fund. It is being outcompeted and is not being as effective as it could be.
Q19 Chris Loder: Thank you. Rachel?
Dr Giles: Yes, HS2 has spoken to wildlife trusts about the Woodland Fund. Because the wildlife trusts fundamentally disagree with the amount of compensatory woodland provided, that puts us in a very difficult position to accept those funds, so we have not done so at the moment.
Q20 Chris Loder: Are you able to share with us how much we are talking about?
Dr Giles: I do not have those figures, but I could get them.
Q21 Chris Loder: If you were able to share them with us so that we can put that into perspective, it might be helpful.
Kathleen Covill: I understand that the fund opened in 2018. There is £7 million across phases 1 and 2A. Just over £1.1 million has been spent so far. I have figures of around 130 hectares of new habitat planting and 90 hectares of restored ancient woodland planting.
Q22 Chris Loder: So that I am clear, that was £7 million to replace, ultimately, how many hectares? You told us at the beginning.
Kathleen Covill: It would be about 34 hectares of ancient woodland. That is direct impact on ancient woodland.
Q23 Chris Loder: Basically, there is £7 million of public money going to support the planting of 24 hectares.
Kathleen Covill: Thirty-four.
Chris Loder: I beg your pardon—34.
Kathleen Covill: Direct impact. That is at the side of the line.
Q24 Chris Loder: Rachel, you still don’t think that is enough. It is quite a lot of money.
Dr Giles: That is for the ancient woodland. I am talking about other losses of woodland. It is only half as much as they need.
Chris Loder: Thank you very much—
Rebecca Pullinger: Can I come in as well? I am sorry to interrupt. We call for a replacement ratio for ancient woodland of around 30 to one. While there is direct loss of 34 hectares of ancient woodland, in order to adequately compensate—noting that you cannot fully compensate for that loss—you need much more planting and woodland creation to happen.
Q25 Chair: Thank you. We move on to biodiversity and habitat loss. These are similar questions, Rachel. How do you think the scheme is doing on that?
Dr Giles: In order to put it into context, you have to think about the size of the scheme. The footprint of the scheme is approximately the size of the city of Manchester. In places, it is up to 1 km wide. Within that footprint, there are 333 local wildlife sites that will be directly impacted. We have 13 wildlife trust reserves. If we think about the cumulative impacts, there has never been a scheme like it. This is development on an unprecedented scale, which is why the wildlife trusts are so worried about it.
Going on to the compensation side, the wildlife trusts have spent a whole year replicating HS2’s no net loss figures. It has taken us a very long time. We have remapped the whole route. Essentially, we found that their figures are at least 16%, and up to 36%, out. That is calculating the baseline biodiversity value.
HS2 is also creating only half the woodland and grassland that it needs to create. It is using its own tool, a way of measuring biodiversity that is 10 years out of date, untested and not peer reviewed. That is why the wildlife trusts are so determined that we need to communicate to you how poor these calculations are and what distance HS2 has to go in order to achieve its objective of no net loss.
Q26 Chair: Are there any particularly rare or vulnerable species you are worried about?
Dr Giles: There are rare species. Water voles are one example. In Cheshire, we are about to lose the water vole. It is in serious trouble in Cheshire. HS2 is going through three populations. It has not come up with significant compensation measures for water voles.
Other species are affected, particularly in long linear habitats along rivers. We have impacts not just on water voles but on kingfishers, fish and invertebrates. There is a massive deficit on hedgerows, which provide connectivity in the landscape for bats, other mammals, yellowhammers and tree sparrows. One in seven species in the UK is at risk of extinction, and 56% are in decline. This is a development that is happening all at once, or in a very short period of time, with a massive footprint, and that is why wildlife trusts are so concerned about the impacts.
Q27 Chair: Do all the mitigations that you would like HS2 to do that it is not currently doing cost money? Would some of them be cost-free?
Dr Giles: You need to spend more money on the mitigation. There is not enough mitigation. As I said before, when we do the calculations, we see HS2 creating only half the amount of compensatory woodland that they need to create. We have redone their calculations, and we know that it is 50% down on current standards, using the Government’s biodiversity metric. We have compared the two. They are overvaluing the grassland by a third. We estimate that to put that right will probably cost somewhere in the region of £75 million. That is the shortfall. That is what it is going to cost to make this scheme sustainable.
Q28 Chair: Railways can be green corridors, can’t they? They can be net positive for the environment, compared sometimes with some of the surrounding agricultural land. That is not being realised, in your view.
Dr Giles: The problem with HS2 is that it is so wide. The construction footprint is around 200 metres, on average, but in some places it is 1 km because you have all the compounds as well. That massive, long linear impact is going to fragment the river corridors and the hedgerow corridors. That is what we are particularly concerned about—connectivity in the wider landscape—because we have nature reserves and woodlands scattered across the landscape. The issue is the connectivity. When the scheme is built, if it is properly mitigated for, it could be net positive. We have a long way to go to get to that point.
Chair: Grahame is going to ask another couple of questions about biodiversity.
Q29 Grahame Morris: You have covered some of the ground and shared with us your scepticism about the commitments that HS2 has made. Is it conceivable that HS2 could ultimately achieve no net loss of biodiversity and, indeed, live up to its anticipated target of improving biodiversity?
Dr Giles: It could, but there are several steps that HS2 would have to take. They would have to go back and completely start again on the metric calculations for phases 1 and 2A. They would have to remap it. We have looked at their mapping. It is full of errors. The number of errors in it are shocking. Most importantly, they need to use a different version of the metric calculator tool, because the one that they are using is untested and fundamentally flawed. It is not fit for purpose. It is a joke, quite frankly.
Q30 Grahame Morris: You mentioned earlier, and you have reinforced it, that you thought there had not been any peer review and that the methodology HS2 has come up with is unsatisfactory. You are having ongoing discussions with HS2. Is it possible to establish a methodology that you could accept and that would be a reasonable measure of the mitigation that they are proposing?
Dr Giles: Yes. All they need to do is adapt the current standards. The biodiversity net gain metric that all other contemporary developments use is based on 10 years’ research, is peer reviewed and has had professionals feed into it. That is the complete opposite of the HS2 no net loss metric. That tool is not fit for purpose. Some of the results are shocking. HS2 say that there are going to be net gains in watercourses and hedgerows, but they are not accounting for the difference between a ditch and a river or a privet hedge and a hedge with trees. It is ridiculous.
Q31 Grahame Morris: That is a useful example. In practical terms, what steps should HS2 take to ensure that the net loss of biodiversity is minimised? It is not just down to methodology. Practically, what should they be doing?
Dr Giles: First, they have to measure it properly so that they can work out how much mitigation they need to create. That is the very first step. Secondly, they need to look outside the red-line boundaries and start talking to third-party landowners. We do not believe they are doing a lot of that at the moment. They have their particular biodiversity funds, but they need to work with farmers outside the red-line boundary to get long-term agreements. It is possible. They could do it. They also need to do some more habitat translocation, so that when they hit a really important woodland or grassland, they move the soils. That is another key thing we would ask.
Q32 Grahame Morris: I was thinking about my own experience in east Durham, which is a coalmining area, and the efforts that were made there once the collieries had closed to mitigate the huge environmental impact of the coal waste—the pit heaps and the coastal collieries that tipped their waste on to the seashore. There was the Turning the Tide project, funded partially by the lottery. A massive effort was made to increase biodiversity. A small colony of terns was nurtured. There was the adoption of the coastal area by Natural England and so on. It is quite a transformation. It can be done. Rebecca, what are your thoughts on those points?
Rebecca Pullinger: The key point is making sure that you have the data and the evidence in place at the start, when you are starting to think about where the route should go and the alignment of the route. If ancient woodland had been taken into account much earlier, there would be much less loss in these figures. By way of an example, when the route for the Hulseheath to Manchester section of HS2 was first proposed, just one ancient woodland was identified. That figure now stands at 11 that will be impacted by HS2. Getting the evidence in place to begin with to inform your calculations on no net loss and the design of your route is really important. It makes it a lot easier to deliver no net loss because you are reducing the harm in the first place.
Q33 Grahame Morris: That comes on to my next question. Kathleen, do you share Rebecca’s view that if there had been a little more thought initially and more scientific analysis of the impact, and if an alternative route had been chosen, the damage would have been far less?
Kathleen Covill: Inevitably, there could be improvements in the very early stage of route choice. It is very difficult. Natural England’s remit focuses on protected sites and landscapes. From our perspective, the number of protected sites—SSSIs and Natura 2000 sites—was a key consideration in early route choices. HS2 has taken steps to try to reduce the number of sites that have been impacted.
Coming back to the question of what more could be done around nature, the headline for us is about looking at biodiversity net gain, with a reliable metric to measure that. I know that HS2 is looking at trying to align its metric more closely with the DEFRA metric as it stands at the moment. We really want to see biodiversity net gain of replaceable habitats for the whole route. It is brilliant to see the commitment for phase 2B, which came about as a response to the Dasgupta report, but we think that HS2 could be doing that for the whole route. To do that, you need to be looking at a 10% or more gain. National Highways is looking at that and the Environment Agency is doing biodiversity net gain. Lots of other Government agencies and developers are doing it. We want HS2 to move into the whole-route space on biodiversity net gain as well. Then, hopefully, we will start to get some of the additional compensation that we want to see happening outside the route.
Q34 Grahame Morris: I understand that you can replace habitat and so on, but you cannot replace ancient woodland.
Kathleen Covill: Exactly.
Q35 Grahame Morris: Is there anything further you want to add before I hand back?
Dr Giles: I reiterate what Kathleen said, emphasising that HS2 has to start again—to redo the calculations from scratch and to remap it. It has taken us a year, so it is not going to be really expensive for HS2. It has to remap it, because its mapping is terrible and full of errors. Most importantly, it must use the new version of the metric, not its own metric.
Grahame Morris: You have been absolutely clear about a reliable metric. Thanks very much for your evidence.
Q36 Chair: Mr McCartney wants to come in briefly. Before he does, if HS2 is not using the statutory metric that is used in all other developments, Kathleen, how come? Is that a policy decision? Has it been given a special licence?
Kathleen Covill: No. At the moment, it is not a mandatory requirement for HS2 to do no net loss or biodiversity net gain. It is a voluntary commitment—a policy commitment that was made on its behalf. Mandatory net gain for other Town and Country Planning Act applications will not come in until next year. Those mandatory applications have to use the latest version of the DEFRA metric.
Q37 Chair: A policy decision was taken not to impose a mandatory metric on HS2.
Kathleen Covill: Absolutely. It has made a voluntary commitment to doing biodiversity net gain.
Q38 Chair: Was that against your advice as an organisation?
Kathleen Covill: No, not at all. At the time, there was a DEFRA metric. I think that it was 2.0 at that stage and then 2.1. Our advice has always been to align as closely as possible with the DEFRA metric, because then you are able to compare across other projects and other Government policy areas. Where they can align most closely with the DEFRA metric, that is ideal. At the moment, the British standard for BNG does not specify that you have to use the DEFRA metric. It just says that you have to use a suitable metric to measure your losses and gains.
Q39 Karl McCartney: Kathleen, from what you have just said, which I had not heard before, you may want to answer some of this. Obviously, I drafted my question in advance. The three of you have used various figures. I am looking at Dr Rachel Giles because she mentioned them. Would £100 million be a ballpark figure for HS2 to spend to mitigate the line’s effects, both during construction and ongoing? Roughly, would you say that that is a fair amount?
Dr Giles: Roughly. I think that it is about 1% of the whole budget.
Q40 Karl McCartney: Understood. Who decides how that taxpayers’ money is spent and what mitigation does and does not happen?
Dr Giles: HS2 is deciding on the level of compensation. Obviously, it is up to Government to tell HS2 what level of money—
Q41 Karl McCartney: Do your three NGOs have an input into that? Do you get money to spend yourselves, or do you say to them, “We think you should spend it in this area or on this particular hectare of ancient woodland”?
Dr Giles: We work with and will advise HS2. At the moment, as I said, we are in a very difficult position. We do not want to be seen to be taking money off HS2 when we fundamentally disagree with the amount.
Q42 Karl McCartney: Understood. Are you getting to speak to the senior people you need to speak to?
Dr Giles: Yes, we are.
Q43 Karl McCartney: You get that access. What is the next biggest scheme, perhaps historically, where your three organisations have had impacts to mitigate the environmental costs of the scheme? Did you have the same opportunity to impact on what they did or did not do? This is just as a comparison for us on the Committee. Do you have any recent examples, or even examples going back some time?
Kathleen Covill: It is probably worth flagging the fact that Natural England is not an environmental non-governmental organisation. We are slightly different. We are an NDPB—Government’s statutory adviser on environmental impacts from large-scale infrastructure. Natural England has a statutory responsibility to respond to any major infrastructure project. There are lots of major infrastructure projects going on: all the offshore wind, all the nuclear projects and other big transport projects. We are involved as the statutory adviser responding to environmental impact assessments and appropriate assessments for all of those kinds of pieces of infrastructure. That is part of our role. We need to give that advice.
Q44 Karl McCartney: Are the costs to mitigate the effects of those new schemes roughly the same percentage-wise? Do you have any actual figures?
Kathleen Covill: It is very variable. We could write back to you with some figures.
Q45 Karl McCartney: If you could, just as a comparison for us when we come to make our report. It would be quite useful for that.
Kathleen Covill: Okay.
Q46 Karl McCartney: I am going to give you a scenario now to see what your answer will be. I am looking at Dr Giles. It might be for her to answer this one, but all three of you can have a go. If HS2 was a motorway and not a railway, of roughly what magnitude would you expect the figure to mitigate the infrastructure project’s effects to be in the short and long term? Would it be three, five or 10 times as much? I don’t think it is going to be less.
Dr Giles: It is difficult, because it is to do with the size of the footprint. With HS2, because it is a long linear project, because it cuts through and you have road diversions and construction compounds as well, the footprint is potentially bigger than that of a new motorway. The environmental footprint for HS2 and the impacts are probably greater than those for a new motorway.
Q47 Karl McCartney: That surprises me. I will ask your two colleagues on the panel whether they think the same.
Rebecca Pullinger: The footprint is obviously a key environmental impact. However, earlier we were discussing indirect impacts. There might be other indirect impacts, such as pollution from cars on the road that would need to be taken into account as part of the wider assessment of environmental impact and that perhaps rail might not have.
Kathleen Covill: We would want to give a bit more thought to that one before I jump in and answer it.
Karl McCartney: I thought that I would throw in a curve ball just to see what your reaction would be. Thank you very much. Back to you, Chair.
Chair: Karl on motorways leads us nicely to Jack Brereton, who is going to ask you some questions about carbon.
Q48 Jack Brereton: Thank you, Chair. We have talked a lot about your concerns around the biodiversity and habitat impacts. What are your views on the wider, overall environmental assessment of HS2?
Dr Giles: Talking about the atmospheric carbon emissions is not my area of expertise. I don’t have data to talk to you about that. However, having said that, I think it is important to remember that within woodlands, grasslands and all semi-natural habitats there is embedded carbon. We want to make sure that that is taken into account in the calculations.
Q49 Jack Brereton: Kathleen, do you have a view?
Kathleen Covill: We defer to the Environment Agency on carbon matters. I know that, from our perspective, nature solutions are going to help HS2’s carbon emissions. We would definitely make that link; the more you do for biodiversity, the more carbon you are going to capture. A hectare of broad-leaved woodland habitat, created over a 30-year timescale, captures 270 tonnes of carbon per hectare. The more woodland creation that High Speed 2 puts in place and funds, the more carbon capture you are going to see bringing benefit to the scheme.
Q50 Jack Brereton: Do you have a view, Rebecca?
Rebecca Pullinger: To add a specific example—we cannot comment on the overall balance—Manchester airport station, or its proposed location, will result in a direct loss of 0.75 hectares of ancient woodland. The Government’s statement on phase 2B talks about how the proposal will double the number of people across the north who could access Manchester airport within 90 minutes. That is perhaps against getting people out of the air and on to railways. Those issues need to be taken into account as that carbon—
Q51 Jack Brereton: That leads on to what I was going to ask next, which is about modal shift. Obviously, HS2 is about trying to get people off the roads, out of planes and on to the rail network. Is that something that would be taken into consideration, given the reduction in carbon emissions and the environmental impact of getting more people on to the rail network?
Rebecca Pullinger: Following my comment on Manchester airport, we are not aware that those greenhouse gases have been taken into account so far. Otherwise, we cannot comment on that modal shift in itself.
Q52 Jack Brereton: Do any of the other witnesses have a view on that?
Kathleen Covill: It is not something that we tend to focus on when we are looking at environmental impacts and how they could be mitigated.
Dr Giles: Because there is a massive shortfall in the amount of mitigation habitat that is being provided, or compensatory habitat, it means that there will be shortfalls in the amount of carbon as well. If you think about the net balance between—
Q53 Jack Brereton: Do you think that will impact on the overall picture?
Dr Giles: Of course it will, but I do not know whether that has been taken into account. I am not sure.
Q54 Jack Brereton: Do you all have concerns about the overall carbon emissions from the scheme, particularly obviously during construction, and whether that will be properly mitigated moving forwards?
Kathleen Covill: Again, that is something we would advise speaking to the Environment Agency about. They have been more actively involved with HS2’s carbon action plan than we have.
Q55 Jack Brereton: What further steps would you like HS2 to take to try to mitigate some of the emissions that are likely to be caused?
Kathleen Covill: To reiterate, essentially, a shift to a whole-route, biodiversity net gain of replaceable habitats will be a step in the right direction.
Q56 Jack Brereton: Is that what you all agree with?
Dr Giles: And make sure that it is measured properly, yes.
Rebecca Pullinger: And making sure that the compensation for irreplaceable habitats like ancient woodland is adequate. By way of example, ancient woodland sequesters more carbon than all other woodland. It is more valuable as a carbon store than less mature woodland. It is about 36% higher for ancient woodland than all woodland types.
Q57 Chair: Carbon may not be your expertise, but do you accept as environmentalists that the climate emergency is the biggest single threat to biodiversity, and that high-speed electric rail has the potential to achieve the modal shift that Mr Brereton has been talking about from car and plane? I think France is even banning quite a lot of domestic routes because of their high-speed rail network. Is that something that you would accept in principle?
Dr Giles: From the Wildlife Trust’s point of view, it is really important to recognise that making the ecology crisis worse is not going to help address the climate issues. That is the point. If you are impacting nature, that is where carbon is embedded. If you are exacerbating the environmental crisis in terms of biodiversity, it is not going to help the overall climate change issues. It is not an either/or.
Q58 Chair: Any new rail system is going to do that. Is it not possible that the benefits could be greater than the losses in carbon terms, and in overall environmental terms?
Dr Giles: It depends on what timescales you are looking at. If you are looking at it in the short term, it is highly unlikely. I do not know the figures. It is going to be a long time in the future before it becomes net zero.
Q59 Gavin Newlands: Chair, apologies to you and the panel for being late this morning. A lot of us in the Committee have spoken about HS2, and recently in particular about the changes to the eastern leg and how that relates to the integrated rail plan. We euphemistically call them changes to the eastern leg.
From a transport connectivity and reliability point of view, that is not particularly good news, to say the least, for Yorkshire and those along the route. Could you tell us how the original eastern leg plans have affected ancient woodlands and habitat?
Kathleen Covill: My understanding is that the original eastern leg would have had around 11 hectares of ancient woodland directly impacted by the scheme. Again, from our remit, we were looking at direct impact on one site of special scientific interest and also a river crossing of a river of special area of conservation. The cancellation of the eastern leg has at least saved those particular areas of ancient woodland and those two protected sites.
Q60 Gavin Newlands: Do the other two have anything to add to that?
Rebecca Pullinger: Adding to the indirect impact, around 48 ancient woodlands stood to be affected. With the significant reduction in length, that now stands at just six ancient woodlands that will be affected by the current proposals.
Q61 Gavin Newlands: What is your response to the changes to the eastern leg, Rachel?
Dr Giles: We very much welcome that that is going to be put on hold. I do not know whether it is going to be completely cancelled, but we welcome that. As I said before, in principle the Wildlife Trust is not against sustainable transport; in fact, we are in favour of sustainable transport. If it was to be looked at again and done properly, and if, as Rebecca and Kathleen pointed out, we make sure the right route is chosen that does not impact those ancient woodlands and other important sites, then potentially you could see benefits from having an eastern leg, but there are lots of caveats.
Q62 Gavin Newlands: Have any of you worked with HS2 or the DFT on an alternative route?
Dr Giles: No.
Kathleen Covill: No.
Q63 Gavin Newlands: Do you have an alternative route that you could suggest to the DFT or HS2 if they were to find the money again at some point in the future?
Dr Giles: No.
Kathleen Covill: No.
Rebecca Pullinger: On the western leg we suggested a number of proposals to amend the route to avoid some of those interests. We look to do the same once HS2 has suggested a route alignment for that leg.
Q64 Gavin Newlands: On the changes to the western line, was there a cost associated with them? You could argue it is priceless, but had you calculated a cost, potentially, with your alternative routes?
Rebecca Pullinger: The alternatives we presented did not come with a cost. We know that HS2 are looking at those. So far, three of our proposed alternatives have been taken on board by the team. That consultation was earlier this year, so those discussions are still very much ongoing.
Q65 Gavin Newlands: Presumably, if the eastern leg were to be brought back—I won’t say from the dead—from where it is at the moment, would you be looking at some sort of similar plan for alternative routes for the eastern leg as well?
Rebecca Pullinger: I imagine so, yes, given the large number of ancient woodlands that could be affected, based on the previous proposals.
Q66 Greg Smith: Apologies for my slight lateness. We have seen a pretty substantive injunction on protest activity along the line of route, including the 19 miles of HS2 in my own constituency. What are your respective reactions to the crackdown, if we can call it that, on protest activity along the line of route? In particular from your perspectives, are you concerned about the impact that the injunction will have on your ability to monitor and therefore protect wildlife and woodlands along the construction line?
Kathleen Covill: The injunction won’t impact on our ability to scrutinise the route. If Natural England needs to undertake compliance monitoring of species licences that are being applied along the route, we are able to turn up as and when we need to, to look at what is happening and to speak to ecologists and things on the construction site. It is not a challenge for us.
Q67 Greg Smith: As a brief supplementary, have you ever been challenged by HS2’s own security in gaining that access? Have you ever had difficulties?
Kathleen Covill: No. We let them know that we are coming. We have always been able to access the site when we need to.
Q68 Greg Smith: Dr Giles?
Dr Giles: I work for the Cheshire Wildlife Trust. The plans through Cheshire are not that well developed, so it has not been an issue yet in Cheshire, but I believe from some of my colleagues that there have been access issues, particularly on some of the Wildlife Trust nature reserves that have been impacted. We have 870,000 members. Obviously, a lot of them want to go and visit nature reserves; 13 Wildlife Trust reserves will be impacted, so there are concerns around that. We want to go and have a look and do monitoring and surveys ourselves, but, as yet, it has not directly affected Cheshire.
Rebecca Pullinger: From a Woodland Trust perspective, we often get members of the public emailing us about works that are going on. Obviously, some of them are planned but sometimes they are in breach of assurances. Having access for the public, or for us to go and investigate further, is important to support the monitoring and enforcement of activity that is going on along the line up to the construction boundary.
Q69 Greg Smith: Has the injunction caused any issues so far for your volunteers or your staff who want to put that monitoring in place? Have they been challenged or accused of being a protester rather than someone doing a legitimate job?
Rebecca Pullinger: I will have to check with colleagues who have the emails coming in. I can get back to you on that one.
Greg Smith: I appreciate that.
Q70 Chair: Going back briefly to the woodland issue, noting HS2’s previous response to the 2018 drought, Rebecca, how has the summer heatwave this year affected the saplings on the route, if you know?
Rebecca Pullinger: It is too early to tell for the mortality rates. Obviously, significant mortality happened after the droughts in 2018. We look forward to hearing the reports from HS2 on this next year. I note that the response of HS2 last time, reported in the news, about its being more cost-effective to let the new saplings die and replace them rather than water them is of concern. It delays the mitigation and all the compensation. Further, it creates a bigger gap between the no net loss calculations that go on.
Chair: I don’t have any more questions for this panel. I am dying to know how you pronounce the name of the butterfly. Is it “Dinghy” or “Dingee”?
Dr Giles: Dingee.
Chair: Thank you. Thank you very much, panel.