| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Martin Salter:
What about Reading?
12 Jan 2006 : Column 462
Chris Grayling: No doubt the hon. Gentleman will be fighting hard to keep his seat in the run-up to the next election, and will want to be able to tell his constituents about the hard work he has put into trying to ensure that their rail service is improved.
Ministers will, I am sure, remember debating vigorously last summer the issue of where the route would end with my predecessor and Members representing parts of the south-east. Before Second Reading, Ministers issued an instruction to the Committee that clearly limited the scope of its work. The Secretary of State will recall the exchange between my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) and the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Halton (Derek Twigg). My right hon. Friend said:
"The argument that he has just evinced suggests that he considers the termination of Crossrail in the west at Maidenhead a point of principle. Am I correct in my understanding of the Government's position?"
The Under-Secretary of State replied:
"That is the case, but a Select Committee can consider other related matters. The instruction invites the Committee to inform the House of, but not to comment on or analyse, the nature of representations on the environmental impact of the project that constitute opposition to the principle of the Bill and that, for that reason, fall outside the Committee's remit."—[Official Report, 19 July 2005; Vol. 436, c. 1115.]
No one will deny that the Government's decision to change their mind since last summer will be welcomed in Maidenhead, in the Reading area and in north Kent, where it will be possible to give consideration to the Ebbsfleet extension. I know that there is much interest in those areas. I also know that my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) will have been extremely disappointed by the Secretary of State's comments today. He will have been disappointed to learn that his representations have not led to additional flexibility for the Committee to consider the matters that he has raised over the past few months. He should, however, take comfort from the fact that the motions are not quite what they seem. They open up the possibility of discussion of the alternatives, which the Government appeared to preclude last summer, but I see no evidence that those alternatives are under serious consideration. The Secretary of State himself has said that there is no guarantee that the Government will be able to do anything at the end of all the discussions.
The truth is that the public face of the project does not include detailed costings or portrayals of different options for the extra elements of the project. The projected costings outlined by the Secretary of State last year and in the official Crossrail economic benefits document do not take into account the cost of adding those extra elements. The Secretary of State said today that they were nowhere near becoming a reality; he is merely giving permission for them to be discussed in Committee. I do not think that there should be any expectation in the Reading and Maidenhead areas or in north Kent that if the Committee tells the House that it thinks they are a good idea, the matter will proceed any further.
The Secretary of State is a shrewd man, and the Treasury is always active in taking an interest in these issues. Have Ministers made initial cost estimates for the areas that the Committee is being given freedom to
12 Jan 2006 : Column 463
consider? Has the Secretary of State looked at the costs of the Ebbsfleet extension and the extension from Maidenhead to Reading? If there is no groundwork, there is a danger that he is merely raising false expectations.
Mr. Darling: I made it clear in July, and in my speech today, that the Government believe that the Crossrail terminus in the west should be at Maidenhead. The Government were not convinced that Crossrail should go beyond that. All that I undertook to do in July—which is why I am back here today—was accept that many of my hon. Friends wanted the merits of an extension to be discussed. I made it clear today that the procedure would be different.
The Government have not carried out a detailed costing, because they believe that Crossrail should be fixed at the points that I described earlier. Can I take it from what the hon. Gentleman has said that he believes that Crossrail should now go further than the termini prescribed by the Government?
Chris Grayling: What is completely illogical is that the Government have selected some of the recommendations that have been made, and have put two possible extensions in writing, but the Committee has not been given the flexibility that would enable it to examine the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar. Either this is to be merely a process of discussion, enabling Members, petitioners and the Committee to discuss their views as much as they wish, or we are limiting our focus to two possible alterations to the scheme. The Secretary of State does not appear to have done any work on the issue, which I find slightly surprising. Why should he not allow my hon. Friend's opinions to be put to the Committee?
Mr. Darling: Does the hon. Gentleman really think it would be wise to truncate Crossrail at Liverpool Street? I am beginning to wonder whether he does not regard Crossrail as a political plaything rather than something that London actually needs.
Chris Grayling: I shall come on to political playthings in a moment. I believe that it is the Secretary of State, rather than me, who regards Crossrail as a political plaything.
If the Committee is being allowed to consider two possible alternative routes, I share my hon. Friend's disappointment that it cannot discuss fully the views of others.
On political playthings, what we are engaged in today is simply talk: this is a process that will lead not to action, but to more talk. I say directly to the Secretary of State that this Bill, Crossrail and these motions are set to become just another chapter in the growing volume of Government broken promises on transport. I do not believe that the Government have any intention whatever of seeing this scheme through to fruition. They are leading the people of London and its businesses, and those Members who have thrown their weight behind the scheme, up the garden path.
12 Jan 2006 : Column 464
We must remember where we started from. In the 10-year plan document, the Government not only promised that the people of London would be travelling under the capital in brand new Crossrail trains by 2010; they also said that they had the cash to pay for the scheme. The document states that,
"assuming the broad approach set out above, the following could be delivered with this level of investment".
The bullet point list in that document includes
Of course, that statement is now history and has clearly long since been abandoned. That is why I am so doubtful about the Government's motivation in respect of today's motions and this scheme.
We now know that the Government's estimate of the scheme's cost is heading rapidly past £15 billion, and that their finances are looking increasingly shaky and under pressure. A comprehensive spending review is just a couple of years away, and all independent expectations are that the Chancellor's spending options are much more limited than in the past few years. Do we honestly believe that from 2008 onward—the year in which the promoters say that they hope construction of the scheme can begin—the Chancellor will start issuing financial guarantees or writing cheques to get Crossrail off the ground? Will the Secretary of State give a clear, categorical public assurance today that the current Government intend to fund the lion's share of the construction of Crossrail, as they once said they would? Can he still make the same commitment that he made in the original 10-year plan document—that the Government would provide the funding to make Crossrail happen? [Interruption.] There is silence from the Government.
Mr. Pickles: My hon. Friend will recall that at column 1136 in the Hansard account of our 19 July debate, the Secretary of State said that he would postpone consultation on how Crossrail is to be funded until after publication of Sir Michael Lyons' report. Labour Members and I spoke to Sir Michael just before Christmas, and he said that he was rather bemused by what the newspapers had to say about Crossrail. It was pointed out that the funding of such projects has not been referred to Lyons. Does my hon. Friend not think it rather strange that we are waiting for a report that will not in fact deal with Crossrail funding?
Chris Grayling: It is not only strange; even if that report did consider Crossrail funding, it would be somewhat illogical for a report on the future financing of local government suddenly to be extended to include an analysis of the cost of what will be one of Britain's biggest transport projects. My hon. Friend will remember episodes of "Yes, Minister" in which inconvenient decisions were delayed by a useful review. Far be it from me to suggest that that was the Secretary of State's motivation, but I am sure that there are those who will have a similar suspicion.
I do not believe for a moment that the Government will make a commitment to fund Crossrail any time soon. I do not believe that they will make such a commitment at any stage during this Parliament. The people of Reading and of north Kent will be allowed to make all the representations to the Committee that they
12 Jan 2006 : Column 465
want to make about Crossrail's terminus. My hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar and his constituents may not be allowed to make the same representations, but in fact, this is all talk. Such discussions will not lead to substantial decisions, so in that sense, I can allay his concerns.
I have no doubt that the Government will encourage members of the Select Committee to consider very carefully new ideas to develop the project. I have no doubt that Ministers will make warm noises in response to those deliberations; they may even put dotted lines on the project team maps to illustrate future options. But I do not believe for one moment that Ministers intend that all this should lead to real action and real new capacity for the travelling public. When the right hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) discusses Merseytram in this House, it becomes clear to me that the Government cannot be trusted to keep their promises on transport. If they cannot afford small projects, it is hard to believe that they can afford big ones.
We Conservatives, along with constituents and business communities throughout London, will continue to support this Bill and these motions, and we will continue to encourage the project team in the hope that the Government will surprise us and actually deliver this time. But I suspect that the termini in Reading and Ebbsfleet—and, indeed, the whole Crossrail project—are destined under this Government to become just another set of bullet points in the long list of the Government's broken promises on transport.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |