6200. CHAIRMAN: So it would stay in the Bill and it would last for the further five years?

  6201. MS LIEVEN: My Lords, the way I would suggest to your Lordships that you proceed when considering the CWG petition is to assume the commercial negotiations fail. Assume yourselves in a world where CWG is not paying us any money and is not building the station. In those circumstances, does the Committee believe that it is in the public interest to be able to extend the powers by five years subject to proper scrutiny? If your Lordships proceed on that assumption then there is no problem with the decision you have to make in six weeks.

  6202. CHAIRMAN: I think there is a very great problem because if this amendment is put in there will be no power for the Secretary of State to buy North Wharf or the worksite, and that means that is the end of the Isle of Dogs station.

  6203. MS LIEVEN: I am very sorry, my Lord; I am obviously not making myself clear. All I meant to say was that your Lordships are concerned that when you come to make the decision you will not know whether there is a commercial agreement or not. All I am saying to your Lordships is, at the point you make that decision, assume no commercial agreement, and then judge is it, as I say, in the public interest to extend the powers, or do you accede to the Canary Wharf Group argument, which means that we may be left in a situation where there is no ability to build Crossrail in between five and ten years' time? In my submission it is as simple as that.

  6204. CHAIRMAN: Yes, but there are two different points. We may be asked to remove the extension of time for compulsory purchase powers. That is one thing. Whether or not we are asked to do that, we are asked to recommend the insertion of this amendment which excludes from compulsory purchase powers, whenever they are exercised, North Wharf, including the worksite for the Isle of Dogs station.

  6205. MS LIEVEN: The amendment is not asking you to exclude it now. The amendment is only asking you to exclude it from the power to extend in five years' time.

  6206. CHAIRMAN: Oh, I see. That is what subsection (7) says, is it?

  6207. MS LIEVEN: Yes. That is why both Mr Lewis and I have focused on the five years' time provision because that is the trigger. The first point Mr Anderson was making was about letting us have North Quay for free in that first five-year period where he has no objection to us having the power, but the issue arises in the second five years only. Your Lordship is entirely right, with respect, in what you said a few moments ago, which is that if we do not have that power we could come up against the situation where we do not have the ability to build at least this part of Crossrail, and that, in my submission, it is clear, should not be the situation we are placed into.

  6208. CHAIRMAN: At the end of five years?

  6209. MS LIEVEN: At the end of five years.

  6210. CHAIRMAN: I see.

  6211. BARONESS FOOKES: It could scupper the whole project at this end—is that what you are saying?

  6212. MS LIEVEN: Yes. My Lady, I will just make the assertion because I do not think there is the slightest dispute about it: we could not build the Isle of Dogs station without the North Quay site because there would be no way to bring the stuff in that we need for the station. It would be absolutely impossible to build it. If, therefore, we got to the position where we had got an extension everywhere else but we could not have North Quay there could be no station at Isle of Dogs. Mr Berryman, I am sure, will tell me anything is possible but it really is verging on the impossible here.

  6213. CHAIRMAN: It would be the end of the south-east section?

  6214. MS LIEVEN: It is very difficult to see how or why anybody would build a south east section without stopping at Canary Wharf.

  6215. CHAIRMAN: Exactly.

  6216. MS LIEVEN: And, of course, it is not a real situation because it would not be in the Petitioner's interest for that situation to arise. That is why this is all tied up in reality with commercial negotiations.

  6217. CHAIRMAN: Which we are not allowed to know about for very good reasons?

  6218. MS LIEVEN: The details of which your Lordships are not allowed to know about and which are not for this Committee. We are not really relying so much on the commercial sensitivities—what is or is not the function of this Committee. I would not have thought the Committee wanted to get into the horse-trading between the Secretary of State for Transport and CWG. It is probably not a pretty place to be.

  6219. CHAIRMAN: We certainly do not. Nevertheless, it forms the background to our decision about whether or not this amendment ought to be made.