6083. CHAIRMAN: Shall we go ahead with the Petition of the Canary Wharf Group plc and, in the usual way, perhaps you would like, Ms Lieven, to introduce the facts.

  6084. MS LIEVEN: Yes, certainly, my Lords, my Lady. I am going to spend a little bit longer than normal on opening this case for the Promoters because I do not intend to call a witness for reasons that will become obvious, so the subject matter is outstanding on the Petition. Perhaps we can put up the aerial photograph.[1]

  6085. As the Committee will know, the Canary Wharf Group are major landowners and developers in the area of Canary Wharf and the north part of the Isle of Dogs and, as your Lordships will also know, in the funding announcement for Crossrail made last October by the Government, it included a substantial contribution towards the cost of the project from the Canary Wharf Group. The commercial heads of terms signed with the Canary Wharf Group in October 2007 provide for the construction of the Isle of Dogs Station by, as I will call them, CWG and the Government and CWG are in the midst of confidential commercial negotiations about turning those heads of terms into binding agreements. I just want to put down a marker at this stage that it would, in my submission, be obviously inappropriate for the Committee to become involved in those negotiations or indeed do anything which might disrupt them.

  6086. Now, CWG's outstanding concerns before your Lordships are what might happen if the commercial negotiations fail and the delivery of the Isle of Dogs Station falls back on the nominated undertaker. There are two specific issues that they raise and, I understand, will raise this morning which are closely related. The first is the time in which the North Quay site is returned to them and the second is how soon the station will be delivered.

  6087. Now, on the North Quay site, the members of the Committee who visited the Isle of Dogs will remember that we stood on the bridge, the lifting bridge, and looked down to the box of the station which is shown in yellow. It is not necessary for the purposes of what is going to be raised today to know anything about the engineering of the station. The North Quay site is shown in red and is a large development site to the north of the dock owned by CWG and with a planning permission for a very large commercial development upon it. The site is critical, and there is no dispute about this, as a construction site for the station, so there is no dispute between the parties that the site is needed and cannot possibly be given up as a construction site for the Isle of Dogs Station, and, self-evidently by what I have already said, CWG are wholly supportive, indeed very enthusiastic, about the construction of the station. However, equally it is obvious that development of the North Quay site cannot commence until the Crossrail project in whatever guise has given up occupation as a worksite.

  6088. The issue that lies between the parties here is that clause 6 of the Bill gives the Promoters five years to serve a notice to treat and there is then a provision which allows, in very specific, but very controlled circumstances, for that five years to be extended for another five years. Now, it is important I emphasise at this stage that, for such an extension under the Bill to take place, so beyond the basic five years to extend for a further five years, there is a highly onerous procedure which the Secretary of State would have to go through. He would have to hold a public inquiry on the matter in front of an inspector and the matter would then have to come to a joint committee of Parliament by what is called the `special parliamentary procedure', so, if we do need to extend the period for a notice to treat, under the powers in the Bill, we will have to go through that very rigorous procedure and we will have to convince a parliamentary committee that such an extension is fully justified, so we would have to show a very strong case as to why such an extension should be granted. Now, CWG object to that power to extend for another five years and propose an amendment which Mr Lewis will put in front of you that would prevent any such extension in relation to their land.

  6089. Before the House of Commons, at that stage, the Bill allowed for further extensions; it was not limited to just one extension. CWG appeared before the Commons Committee and made effectively the same arguments about how they needed North Quay back rapidly and there should be no extensions, and the Commons Committee in their Report said that we should amend the Bill so that there could only be one extension, so it would go from five years to ten years, and we did that, so, as I have just explained, the maximum period now for the notice to treat is ten years and it remains, as it did before the Commons Committee, subject to this very rigorous scrutiny process.

  6090. I should emphasise as well at this stage that the power is clearly precedented in previous hybrid Bills. It was in both the Channel Tunnel Act and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act. In the Commons Committee, Mr Lewis made the point that the power did not exist in private Bills, but, my Lords, the reason for that is, in my submission, obvious, that private Bills are extremely unlikely to be of the scale and complexity of Crossrail. I should also add that, if we do get an extension from the basic five years to ten years, then, under the Bill, CWG have the power to serve a notice on us which would force us to elect either to purchase and, therefore, trigger their right to compensation or to give up the power, so, after five years, to summarise the situation, they would have full compensation rights because they can force us to purchase.

  6091. CHAIRMAN: For the whole of North Quay?

  6092. MS LIEVEN: For the whole of whatever land we purchase off them, and that would apply to any other landowner as well, so, if we do get the extension, we have to come forward with the money effectively or give up the powers. Now, can I just say a word as to why we need the power to extend and why we cannot commit, as CWG wish us to, to commence the station works within three years.

  6093. First of all, the issue obviously only arises if the commercial negotiations fail, so we are already in a world that we strongly hope, and believe, will not exist, that is, of the commercial negotiations failing. The Promoters are working on the basis that tunnelling works will commence within three years of Royal Assent and that Royal Assent will be granted, we are assuming, some time in the summer of 2008, and that is our indicative programme, but there are a large number of things that have to be done before tunnelling can commence. Just to give your Lordships a flavour of some of them, the delivery agreements need to be in place, and that obviously involves complicated commercial negotiations, the procurement process has to be undertaken, which is clearly a massive thing with a project of this size, and the construction contracts have to be let. As the Committee will be well aware, all those things take time, but also all those things are capable of coming up against unforeseen delays, and that is really what this is all about. The Crossrail project has to plan on the basis that the unexpected may happen and the potential for unforeseen delays is, I am afraid, simply a fact of life which any responsible promoter has to take account of. In my submission, it would be irresponsible to go forward with a Bill and a project of the scale, complexity and cost of Crossrail with no power to extend time because what that would mean is that, if some unforeseen situation arose, and we can all imagine a whole series of unlikely, but possible events, then, with no power to extend, all the time and expense that has been committed to this Bill so far, the many millions of pounds, would be wasted because there would be no power to extend the powers in the Bill. Therefore, it is our submission that the power we have in clause 6 is no more than sensible contingency planning. In order to try to help CWG, what we have agreed with them is to vacate the North Quay site in phases and to return the land to them more quickly than would be the case if we retained the whole site, and we have been in discussions with them about that, but they are not satisfied on that point.

  6094. Now, the other thing that they want us to commit to is that the Isle of Dogs Station will be constructed in such a manner as to be part of the first phase of the project to be opened to the public. I am just going to repeat what we have said before which is that the Promoters have stated previously that they intend to make the section between Farringdon and the Isle of Dogs the first part of the new Crossrail infrastructure over which trains will operate, and the Promoters remain committed to that position, and we believe that that should be sufficient to satisfy CWG.

  6095. My Lords, that is all I was intending to say in opening, and I am sorry it was a little bit longer and more contentious than most of the openings I have done, but I do not intend to call a witness on this because it is not really an evidential matter, it is a legal matter and a policy matter, so I thought it was helpful to set out our cards on the table at this stage. Unless there is anything the Committee want to ask now, I will hand over to Mr Lewis.

  6096. CHAIRMAN: I have nothing to ask. I do not know if any of my colleagues have.

  6097. LORD BROOKE OF ALVERTHORPE: Well, why five years? Why not seven?

  6098. MS LIEVEN: Well, my Lord, it is a standard period precedented in other hybrid Bills and it seems a fair compromise between the three years which is the statutory period for what I am going to describe as `bog-standard CPOs', your little redevelopment in a town centre, but not going the whole hog of saying ten years granted under the Bill because that would not have the safeguard for landowners of having to go through the parliamentary procedure half-way through, so it appeared to us, and clearly appeared to the drafters of previous hybrid Bills, to be a fair period.

  6099. LORD BROOKE OF ALVERTHORPE: But it can be changed?