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I do not suggest for a moment that that will be repeated with this Bill, but the narrative that I have recounted implies some inattention to the implications and details of the Bill during its earlier consideration by a series of government departments. The central principle of this Bill will be better served if the Government recall the adage that for a ha’p’orth of tar the ship was lost or, even worse in the eyes of my former constituent, that for the loss of a nail an empire was lost. My noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding gave an example of a commitment given by the Secretary of State for Transport that was not fulfilled in the engine room of government. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, made reference to a key assurance on rail freight that was omitted from the Select Committee report.
I shall give a tiny example of my own. Between pages 104 and 128 of the Bill, which encompass Schedule 6, five numbered plots of land, scheduled for compulsory purchase—one of them twice—in the basement of Smithfield Market and the ramp to it, still appear in the legislation, even though agreement has been reached in all five cases to take them out because they are no longer needed. Momentum to create Smithfield Market did not occur until the 1360s, when butchery in the City was banned from residential areas, but people there have still had six centuries or more to get used to the ways of the world. One of the hazards, however, of major projects is blight, one of the causes of which is uncertainty. It would therefore be helpful if the Minister indicated how these cruces, where agreements have been made but have not yet been reflected in the Bill, will be handled and tidied up legislatively.
Provided that the financial uncertainties to which my noble friend Lord Jenkin referred and the questions that have been raised in relation to the hinterland to the west of Paddington are resolved, my attitude in the ultimate analysis is optimistic. I once asked my former constituent whose private interest was military history—I mentioned him before—how he selected the campaigns or battles across the world that he went to examine on the ground. “That’s quite simple,” he said. “I invariably choose British disasters. They are much more interesting than British victories”. My confidence that we shall not have on our hands in engineering terms the sort of mishap that took my friend across the world is based not only on the qualities that caused the new Jubilee line stations to win the prize for the relevant year’s best new buildings but, most particularly, on the extraordinary achievement very close to your Lordships’ House, when over a significant period Transport for London kept Westminster Underground station running normally for District and Circle line tube trains while, at the same time, in one direction Portcullis House was being built over their heads and deep in the other direction, at various levels, the infrastructure for the Jubilee line at Westminster was being constructed. That was a feat of Victorian proportions and an excellent omen for the great project to which we are seeking to give a further push in this Bill tonight.
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8.10 pm
Lord Methuen: My Lords, I welcome the Crossrail Bill for the benefits that it will bring to all parts of the metropolis and its businesses. However, I am disappointed that the more ambitious Superlink scheme did not find favour with the promoters, as I think that in the longer term it would be more financially beneficial.
The choice of Maidenhead and Shenfield as the termini of the proposed route is ludicrous, although I understand that Reading is now being considered as a more practical western terminus for the scheme and that some provision has been made for this in the current planning of the redevelopment of the Reading station. I hope that the Minister can confirm that this is the case.
As I said in our transport debate on 29 November, Crossrail should merely be the precursor of a major east-west route from Newbury, Swindon and Banbury through to Ipswich, Colchester and Southend. Such a choice of destinations would greatly relieve the provision of train paths for Crossrail trains, as they would merely replace the existing paths currently terminating at Paddington and Liverpool Street. The new proposal to terminate at Reading is a modest move towards this goal. For instance, why could there also not be a direct service from Heathrow to Stansted? It could easily be inserted into this scheme when it comes to fruition.
Obviously, the above implies electrification of the outer suburban lines terminating at Paddington to the aforesaid railway stations, including some of the minor branches, but this should be actively pursued anyway, particularly considering our current energy situation. Electrification gives much greater diversity of energy supply, be it from coal, gas, nuclear or a green source. Not only that, but electric traction has a much lower carbon footprint than the existing diesel-powered stock.
I should be interested to know what signalling system is proposed for Crossrail, and whether it will use the European Rail Traffic Management System or something more conventional carrying less risk.
Noble Lords should not think that I do not support Crossrail. I just think that it should merely be the precursor of a major east-west rail corridor similar to the north-south route provided by Thameslink.
I remind the House about the success in building the CTRL on time and to cost. As a regular user of the east midland main line into St Pancras, I know that there has been minimal interruption at St Pancras due to the extensive track rearrangements that have occurred.
I had hoped to be on the Crossrail Select Committee together with the noble Lord, Lord Brougham and Vaux, but we are both barred by our membership of the All-Party Crossrail Group.
I wish the Bill well, and hope that some of my comments come to fruition.
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8.13 pm
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, it is a great pleasure for me to join every other noble Lord who has spoken in this debate to give the Bill my full support. It is not every day that legislation comes before your Lordships' House to build a new railway, and it is a measure of the nation's growing confidence in rail as a means of transport that Crossrail enjoys such widespread support in all political parties, on all Benches, among the business community and within local government in London.
During Third Reading of the Bill in another place on 13 December, Tom Harris, the Minister for Railways, said that Crossrail would add 21 per cent to rail capacity to the City and 54 per cent to that to the Isle of Dogs,
- “thereby relieving congestion and overcrowding on the existing national rail and underground networks. It will support the development of London as a world city and in its role as the financial centre of Europe and the United Kingdom”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/12/07; col. 553.]
I agree with that. Indeed, if we are serious about maintaining and enhancing economic activity in London, there is no alternative to building Crossrail. By 2016, the Underground is likely to be carrying 25 per cent more passengers than today, which is an average of 3.4 million each day. I also endorse what others have said about the value of running 24 services an hour in the peak in both directions through central London, and of carrying 200 million passengers a year in a new fleet of express mainline trains. The benefit to cost ratio of Crossrail will be an excellent 1.8:1, and I see that the Government estimate that Crossrail will generate cash benefits to the UK gross domestic product of at least £20 billion—and it could be much more.
Thirty years ago, less enlightened and shorter-sighted local and national politicians—and the planners who advised them—believed that the country could largely do without its railways, and that the solution to our transport problems lay in building miles and miles and miles of new trunk roads and motorways. Those days are now happily behind us, and the railway is seen as the best option. Crossrail will, I suspect, be just one of a number of major new rail projects that we shall see built or at least started in Britain over the next 20 years.
I have one or two practical questions on some details of the Bill, which I hope my noble friend Lord Bassam may be able to answer either today or later in writing. First, can he assure me that the tunnels through central London will be built to a gauge which would permit, at a later date, the opportunity to run double-decker trains and thereby hugely increase capacity? I am sure that he would agree that it would be short-sighted to close off that option for later capacity enhancement.
Secondly, I note the ingenious and welcome funding formula, about which the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, spoke so clearly, and the grants from the Department for Transport, Transport for London, and £2.5 billion from other sources, including
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In reading some of the Hansard reports of proceedings in the other place on this Bill—and I confess that the Christmas Recess was not long enough for me to be able to study all of them, because the debate went on for a very long time there—I found that some interesting issues and questions emerged. One or two have been referred to this evening. There were two significant and welcome improvements; one was the plan for better passenger facilities at Liverpool Street and, as my noble friend said, the inclusion of a new station for Greenwich. But there were also some very serious arguments for extending the line westwards to Reading and eastwards to Ebbsfleet. Both propositions enjoyed very wide support in the other place—and, indeed, my noble friend will have noticed that there is substantial support for the Reading option in this House today.
I first came across the Crossrail scheme when I was advising the British Railways Board in the 1980s. At that stage, none of us had ever heard of Ebbsfleet, and it was certainly never envisaged that it would become the most important intermediate station between London and the Channel Tunnel. But now the logic for taking Crossrail to Ebbsfleet rather than finishing at Abbey Wood, seems unanswerable. The argument for Reading, rather than Maidenhead, to be the western terminus is even stronger; I agree completely with the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, on that matter.
The Government have already agreed that more than £400 million should be spent on improvements at Reading station. Those will include four more through platforms and at least one additional bay platform, and the corresponding junction improvements. Given that Reading is already the second busiest railway station in Britain outside London—only Birmingham New Street has more trains and more passengers—it seems perverse for it not to be the western Crossrail terminus. An interchange there would work so much better than at Maidenhead, and the benefits for travellers from the Thames Valley, from the south-west, to which the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, referred, from south Wales, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said, from the Cotswold Line—I declare an interest as the president of that line's promotion group—and from places south and west of Reading such as Newbury and Basingstoke, would be enormous. The benefits from a terminal at Maidenhead would be very small in comparison.
There are signs that the Government now agree. Tom Harris in the other place said on 23 October:
“I accept that the arguments for extending Crossrail westwards to Reading are persuasive. However, it is not the Government’s intention to redraw the Bill as it stands at the moment”.
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Noble Lords should note that “at the moment”. He went on to say that,
- “it will be up to any future Government to decide, if they so wish, to extend Crossrail. We have already safeguarded the route from Abbey Wood down to Ebbsfleet, and we are considering whether similar action should be taken with regard to the route west from Maidenhead to Reading”.—[Official Report, 23/10/07; Commons, col. 205.]
A nod's as good as a wink, and we need not feel inhibited in this House during the Bill's later stages and be prevented from proposing amendments which would enhance the benefits of Crossrail by getting the eastern and western terminuses right—at Ebbsfleet and Reading.
The Minister in another place said that extensions could be achieved by means of Transport and Works Act 1992 orders, but it would be much more satisfactory if both places were named in the Bill. It would be a proper use of this House's powers to revise and improve the Bill in that way when we have the opportunity to do so.
This is a good Bill and a welcome development, and I wish it and the Select Committee—which I hope will not be spending four years on it—every good fortune when we look at it in detail later on.
8.22 pm
Lord Brougham and Vaux: My Lords, I declare an interest as a vice-chair of the All-Party Crossrail Group which has been an attentive follower of the progress of the Crossrail project and of this Bill for a number of years. As a group, we are certainly pleased to see that, at long last, encouraging progress is being made to realise this project, which is widely accepted as essential to improving London's transport network. I am afraid that that was why I was barred from sitting on the committee, as my noble friend Lord Methuen said—we would both have liked to.
I begin by congratulating the members of the Select Committee on the Crossrail hybrid Bill in the other place on the efficient and judicious way in which they dealt with petitions against the scheme. The committee faced a total of 466 petitions lodged against the Bill, and heard from some 200 of them—an impressive record. Concerns from residents along the route included issues such as protection from noise and construction impacts, the times of day when work would be undertaken, and shielding from lighting. Representatives from the rail industry also expressed concerns about the integration of the Crossrail project with the existing network and the implications for rail freight, which has already been mentioned.
I hope that the commitment given in the other place will have provided appropriate solutions to the majority of these concerns, although I am sure that some of these issues will be brought up again in Committee in this House. I only hope that satisfactory progress is made to ensure that the construction of this much needed project can begin as swiftly as possible.
I am sure that we have all, at one time or another, experienced the overcrowding, reliability problems and delays which currently affect London's transport network. Much of London’s transport infrastructure is old but
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The project will release pressure at some of London's busiest transport hubs by letting passengers avoid busy interchanges at Liverpool Street, Paddington, Waterloo and London Bridge. Commuters travelling to Farringdon from Romford, for example, will no longer need to change trains, releasing platform capacity at Liverpool Street, which will allow additional trains to use the station. It will allow passengers to travel directly from Heathrow Airport, to the City and beyond. It will also reduce overcrowding at Paddington station and will be a key part in supporting and developing London's position as a global financial centre.
The benefits of Crossrail, as has been said, will be felt much more widely. It will enable the growth of new communities in the Thames Gateway. It will create jobs and help businesses in central London and elsewhere to employ more people and will help secure London's position as a global city. It is often suggested that investment in Crossrail is at the expense of investment outside the capital, but it is well proven that investing in London is the best way of supporting the UK economy. The benefits of Crossrail will be felt nationwide.
I was pleased that the Government were recently able to provide confirmation of the funding package for Crossrail, bringing to an end the uncertainty surrounding their commitment to the project. I urge the Government to now move swiftly to clarify their proposals on supplementary business rates and a statutory planning charge so that all those who stand to benefit from Crossrail are clear about the contribution that they will be expected to make to the project.
With great respect, I must say that the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is to my mind totally wrong. The only way that he can achieve what he wants to is to petition the Bill. As I understand it, members of the committee cannot ask for evidence to be put to them. They can only hear what is put to them by the petitioners. I hope that he will withdraw his Motion. If I was on the Committee, I would feel a little hurt and insulted to be told what to do.
Finally, I urge the Government and noble colleagues to work together to allow the Bill to pass swiftly through the House. The Crossrail project has been a long time in development and I hope to see its enabling Bill enacted as soon as possible so that London and the rest of the country can begin to feel the benefits of this essential infrastructure investment.
8.28 pm
The Earl of Glasgow: My Lords, when Gordon Brown was interviewed by Andrew Marr on his morning programme last Sunday, he gave the same answer to nearly every question. His recent short-term difficulties, we learnt, would soon pale into insignificance because he intended to concentrate on long-term policies. His premiership was going to be judged by the difficult decisions that he was going to have to make on Britain's long-term issues. There
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All major new transport initiatives seem to be decided independently of each other and, in many instances, feel like some sort of short-term fix, brought on to alleviate one particular problem, with the result that when one project has eventually been completed, time has caught up with it and it has now become inadequate for purpose. The Crossrail project may be no exception.
However, I am sure that most of us want Crossrail to go ahead. In fact, many of us wanted it to go ahead many years ago. So, at this stage there is some reluctance among its supporters to propose major improvements and amendments to the Bill for fear of delaying it further. That is a restricting factor for those of us who really want something more ambitious.
Crossrail is a one-off. It is almost entirely devoted to relieving congestion in London and in particular,
We all applaud that and accept it as a very worthwhile objective, but with it comes the ominous government statement that,
I am not sure whether that means the only new line in London or the only new line in Britain. I am hoping that the Minister may enlighten us on this. But whatever it means, it is a gloomy prediction.
Eighty per cent of the Crossrail budget is to be spent on tunnelling under London and establishing the new underground stations. Surely if we are going to take the trouble of undertaking such an expensive exercise, it should be there not only for the benefit of those coming in and out of London but should also be a conduit for travellers from Kent and Essex to pass through London to the west and for those living well to the west of London to reach places east of London. But in order to do this there would need to be provision in the Bill—at the moment there is no such provision—to make connections with many other existing lines, not just the ones proposed in the present scheme.
I am also concerned about the proposed line into Heathrow Airport. The new line is intended to come only into terminal 5. Many people have already mentioned that this would mean having to change at Paddington and go on the Heathrow Express if you wanted to go to any of the other terminals. Surely it needs to link up with all five terminals. Surely that makes sense. I would also like assurance from the Minister that there is nothing in the Crossrail plans that could prevent future development of a high-speed rail network linking Heathrow with the north or with the Channel Tunnel.
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We all welcome Crossrail—at least most of us do, although some in the west may not welcome it so strongly—but I fear that once it is completed in 2017 or thereabouts, passenger traffic in London will have increased to such an extent that by then it will prove less than adequate for the purpose for which it was intended.
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