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Transport minister Nusrat Ghani says she expects HS2 Ltd and associated contractors to treat people with respect.

She says she expects HS2 Ltd to reach "extremely high standards" in all engagement activities with local communities, adding that she will "continue to hold HS2 to account".

The government is "determined" and "on course" to deliver HS2 for the UK, she adds.

For every £1 invested, HS2 will return £2 of benefit to the UK, she states.

The Commons is now voting on whether to give a second reading to the HS2 bill. There'll be a result at around 7.15pm.

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Lord [Chris] Patten says if the foreign secretary were here - "and we should be so lucky" he would tell peers of the sphinx which devoured those who could not solve its riddles, adding the "great sphinx" of EU membership "is devouring the Conservative Party".

He claims the referendum was called to hold the party together but instead it "blew up in their face".

He asks, if we're in the driving seat on Brexit negotiations, "is it a bandwagon or a hearse?" and whether the government knows where it's going.

He concludes his speech quoting Shakespeare's King John: "So foul a sky clears not without a storm".

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Crossbench peer and former Justice of the Supreme Court, Lord Brown of Eaton-Under-Heywood, says that although he was a Remainer the bill is necessary to deal with the "vacuum" in legislation when the UK leaves the EU.

He asks why problems caused by EU retained law cannot be dealt with by an implementation bill, rather than by the EU Withdrawal Bill.

He thinks Henry VIII powers need to be curbed.

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Conservative and former chair of the backbench 1922 Committee, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, says the Lords needs to consider Lord Adonis' idea of a second referendum for the UK.

He says that it raises more questions however, around timing and what is put on the ballot paper.

He says that he would have no option but to "take to the streets" if there were to be a parliamentary vote on Brexit. He adds that the UK government "has played a weak hand very very badly".

He adds that the current situation in the UK is like going into a restaurant and being asked to pay for your meal before seeing the menu.

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The UUP's Lord Empey says he believes the question of the Irish border "has almost been weaponised" and the "scale of the challenge has been exaggerated".

He complains that most of the people who talk about the effect on the Good Friday Agreement were not involved in negotiating it and haven't consulted those who were.

"The only threat of a border is from the EU forcing the Irish Republic to put up a border," he observes.

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Dame Cheryl Gillan, Conservative MP for Chesham and Amersham, whose constituency will be affected by HS2, says that her constituency bears the burdens of the project but none of the benefits.

She states that the cost of the project "will go up exponentially", saying that it has already risen from £16bn to £55.7bn.

She believes that HS2 will be "the most expensive railway on earth" costing £403m per mile.

She says that 63 ancient woodlands will be affected by the build, adding "once they're gone, they're gone".

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Crossbencher Baroness Finlay of Llandaff is unhappy about how the bill treats the devolved institutions, saying that it would "put a new set of shackles" on them.

It would "lock down opportunities" for the devolved bodies to set their own agenda, she warns.

She says neither the finance secretary in Wales nor the Brexit minister in Scotland shares the government's positive view of negotiations aimed at introducing amendments to address this question.

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Crossbencher Lord Luce criticises the Spanish government for seeking a "clause" in any Brexit agreement applying to Gibraltar, over which it disputes the UK's territorial claims.

Last year, a draft document on the EU's Brexit strategy said no agreement on the EU's future relationship with the UK would apply to Gibraltar without the consent of Spain, giving it a potential veto.

Gibraltarians, who voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU, are British citizens but they run their own affairs under a chief minister, with the UK government responsible for defence and foreign affairs.

Lord Luce says any clause would mean "in the worst case, Spain can seek to exclude Gibraltar from any agreement" or require a separate Brexit agreement covering Gibraltar.

He alleges that Gibraltarians have also faced "plenty of provocation from some Francoist elements in the Spanish government".

The Spanish and British governments should work together "in their common interests" to resolve the matter before any final Brexit talks, he argues.

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Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke, a Labour peer and former Scottish secretary, says she "spent an afternoon" examining the government's "sectoral analyses" which were the subject of a fierce battle in Parliament.

She alleges that parliamentarians are being "taken for fools" and she found the reports "shallow" and "unilluminating".

"I've spent a better afternoon in bed with the flu watching Babe and Babe in the City," she says, to laughter.

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A quick check-in with the Commons where MPs are discussing HS2. Labour's Chris Matheson uses his speech to call for a larger hub in Crewe. Mr Matheson represents the City of Chester, just nearby.

He says that HS2 will feature a Crewe hub but "it's some amorphous idea of a Crewe hub, but we're still not sure what, or exactly where it is".

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Labour's Lord Foulkes of Cumnock begins his speech with a dig at the "rabble-rousing rant" of Viscount Ridley.

He tells the chamber: "I do not accept that this advisory referendum is binding on Parliament and on the government."

He says he was heartened to hear this view shared by an earlier speaker, Lord Higgins, asking: "Any advance on that - three, four of us?"

"Too many Remainers are throwing in the towel," he cautions. "It makes lemmings look cautious by comparison."

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Matt Ridley is the author of books including The Rational Optimist - billed as "a counterblast to the prevailing pessimism of our age" - and has to follow Lord Bilimoria who warned of a "train crash".

Viscount Ridley stands up as many peers are still laughing at the end of the previous speech and jokes: "I haven't said anything yet."

He says the bill is not the legislation that will withdraw the UK from the EU but one which "makes sure the law works when we do".

He reminds peers that the House of Commons sent the upper House a bill with few amendments. Peers "can scrutinise it and amend it" but should not seek to "wreck it".

Describing the Lords as a "gilded, crimson, echo-chamber of Remain", he adds that if peers succeeded in frustrating the bill, it won't stop Brexit "but we might hurt Britain".

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Crossbencher and drinks entrepreneur Lord Bilimoria says Brexit has "damaged our standing in the world" and "the whole world thinks we should be remaining in the EU apart from Trump".

He cites comments from Brexiteers about "going global", asking: "What is this going global nonsense?"

He wants to know why he should give up trade with the EU "for trade I'm never going to get", pointing out that India has seven bilateral trade deals and none of them is with an EU country.

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Conservative former minister Lord Lang of Monkton says "it would be wrong to treat [the bill] as a proxy" for the arguments over the merits of leaving the EU, as it is "a technical bill".

We must accept and implement the referendum result with the best deal we can achieve, he argues.

The bill will "protect the rule of law and provide legal certainty - without it there would be chaos", he predicts.

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Liberal Democrat peer Lord Taverne says that failure to reach - or rejection of - a final Brexit deal should leave only two options: either withdrawing Article 50 or holding another referendum.

Theresa May has said Parliament will get a say on the final deal, but Lord Taverne says "we need an amendment in this bill" to make the option of a second referendum "part of a meaningful vote".

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SNP industry spokesman Drew Hendry says the argument that Scotland will benefit from faster journey times in England is "a weak one".

Given that taxpayers in Scotland "are paying for a proportion of the infrastructure", they should see more benefits, he argues.

Like Labour's Andy McDonald, he calls for "answers" over contracts awarded to the collapsed firm Carillion.

The SNP supports HS2, he adds, but calls on the UK government to set out "the best options" for the line's extension to Scotland.

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Lord Bassam, who was until recently Labour's chief whip, says the bill as drafted is "incoherent" and it would be "unpatriotic" to let it go on in this form.

He urges peers to be "unafraid" to seek changes to the bill.

He goes on to say "if we let the government off the hook" on preserving EU rights and protections "we will have failed in our duties".

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"We cannot build our way out of congestion by roads and we must be watchful about the sustainability of domestic air travel," shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald says, arguing in favour of HS2.

With the UK population forecast to hit 70m, he continues, "it's no exaggeration to say that the very economic and social livelihood of our country is at stake".

However, he also uses his speech to criticise Chris Grayling's decisions, including what he calls a "bailout" of Virgin and Stagecoach-operated East Coast Mainline services.

Mr McDonald also accuses ministers of awarding Carillion "a contract for HS2 while the company was imploding", calling this "an appalling decision".

Of the transport secretary, he says: "His dogma won out over pragmatism."

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UKIP's Lord Willoughby de Broke points out that people voted to leave in spite of the government's “propaganda leaflet” and the intervention of “back-of-the-queue Obama”.

The predictions about the economy after the Brexit vote turned out to have "all the accuracy of a cross-eyed javelin thrower", he adds.

He asks why the UK is "paying any money at all to access the single market", suggesting it should be "charging them for access to our markets" instead.