The HS2 Phase 1 Hybrid Bill has today passed on to the Lords after MPs voted for it 399 to 42. This came the same day as a parliamentary report said there is “a culture of defensive communication and misinformation” within HS2 Ltd and that the body has “a complete disregard for the people who are impacted by this large-scale infrastructure project.”
Despite the fact the Channel Tunnel Hybrid Bill report stage report took over six hours in Parliament, only three hours was allocated for both the report stage when amendments can be debated, as well as third reading itself. This not only meant that many of the amendments were never discussed, but when the third reading debate actually happened, it lasted only 37 minutes, meaning many MPs did not have the chance to speak.
HS2 will now go to the House of Lords, with a petitioning period running from 24th march – 18th April, and the second reading taking place on 14th April.
Stop HS2 Campaign Manager Joe Rukin responded:
“The day a Parliamentary report says that HS2 Ltd have a culture of defensive communication and misinformation and a complete disregard for people, MPs overwhelmingly vote for this £56bn project with just 37 minutes of debate. There could be no better demonstration of the fact that HS2 is an out of control vanity project and that politicians do not care about things like the facts or social justice, they just care about their careers. We can only hope the House of Lords will not so easily shirk their responsibilities of scrutinizing this white elephant.”
Stop HS2 Chair Penny Gaines added:
“With just 37 minutes given to debate a £56bn project, that works out at over £1.5bn per minute, rushing through spending at a phenomenal rate. One would have hoped that the day a report was published saying there was a culture of misinformation within HS2 Ltd, that MPs would have given this bill more scrutiny, but they have been happy to have the wool pulled over their eyes and vote for this blindly.”
Below is a list of the 42 MPs (actually 44 including the tellers Andrew Bridgen and Mrs Anne Main) who voted against HS2. Conveniently, some on-route Ministers were overseas: Andrea Leadsom (Brazil – see this tweet), Nick Hurd (Tanzania) and David Liddington (Belfast). What happened to Chris Pincher and Jeremy Wright who also did not vote is unknown.
NOES
- Baker, Mr Steve
- Baron, Mr John
- Bone, Mr Peter
- Brady, Mr Graham
- Campbell, Mr Ronnie
- Cash, Sir William
- Cunningham, Mr Jim
- Davies, Philip
- Dowd, Jim
- Edwards, Jonathan
- Elliott, Tom
- Fabricant, Michael
- Farrelly, Paul
- Fitzpatrick, Jim
- Flynn, Paul
- Gillan, rh Mrs Cheryl
- Grieve, rh Mr Dominic
- Hoey, Kate
- Hollobone, Mr Philip
- Holloway, Mr Adam
- Hopkins, Kelvin
- Lefroy, Jeremy
- Lewis, rh Dr Julian
- Loughton, Tim
- Lucas, Caroline
- McDonnell, Dr Alasdair
- Nuttall, Mr David
- Prentis, Victoria
- Redwood, rh John
- Ritchie, Ms Margaret
- Robertson, Mr Laurence
- Robinson, Mr Geoffrey
- Saville Roberts, Liz
- Sheerman, Mr Barry
- Siddiq, Tulip
- Skinner, Mr Dennis
- Starmer, Keir
- Tracey, Craig
- Turner, Mr Andrew
- Tyrie, rh Mr Andrew
- White, Chris
- Williams, Hywel
Link to Hansard (first page of threee).
Please request more time is taken to more fully assess the context and options in your petition to the House of Lords.
Prepare your House of Lords petition. Happy Easter.
Shameful behaviour. Jeremy Wright is a useless MP and a hypocrite. He does not represent his constituents views, on this matter or hunting!
I thought UKIP are opposed to HS2, so why didn’t Douglas Carswell vote with the NOES?
I can confirm that UKIP continue to have “scrap HS2” as key policy.
Here is the Hansard http://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2016-03-23/debates/16032339000002/HighSpeedRail%28London%E2%80%93WestMidlands%29Bill
Carswell was voting against the Government in Division 229 but was on the missing list by Division 231 so presumably could see the way things were going and had something else to do.