Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1620
- 1639)
1620. Mr Elvin: I can help Mr Laurence,
sir. It is "not feasible".
1621. Mr Laurence: It is paragraph 6.1.
The expression used is "not feasible".
1622. Sir Peter Soulsby: I am terribly
sorry about this but there is a division in the House.
The Committee suspended from 3.05 pm to
3.15 pm for a division in the House
1623. Sir Peter Soulsby: Before we adjourned
we had been considering the question of the order in which proceedings
would be made at the end of our consideration of this petition.
I have taken some advice on this and it is indeed the case that
the Committee has considerable discretion in the way in which
we handle this matter. Following consultation the Committee has
decided to order the following, that at the end of the presentation
of evidence from both sides for the petition the Promoter shall,
to help the Committee, make a closing statement relating to this
petition. The Petitioner will have the right to make the final
statement. This in no way, of course, affects the right of the
Promoter to make the closing statement at the end of our consideration
of the Bill. I hope that is clear and that that will be seen to
be fair to all parties.
1624. Mr Laurence: Could I just say,
sir, that it is entirely consistent with where the burden of proof
lies because these proceedings are proceedings where the principle
of the Bill has been established by the measure being read a second
time in this House and accordingly any Petitioner who comes along
to ask for any sort of redress has to persuade your Committee
that that redress is appropriate.
1625. Sir Peter Soulsby: Mr Laurence,
if I may interject, that is precisely what we had in mind when
we came to that conclusion.
1626. Mr Laurence: I am sorry, sir, even
to point it out, but the reason that the Committee are going to
be assisted by the ruling is that the Petitioner will have the
opportunity in having the last word to know what the case is that
he or she is meeting. I venture to suggest that that is exactly
what will occur in this case and we are obviously very glad about
it.
1627. Sir Peter Soulsby: I think you
are saying the same thing as I did. Thank you, Mr Laurence, that
is very helpful.
1628. Mr Laurence: Sir, I do not know
what I would have done if you had gone the other way.
1629. Mr Elvin: I think Mr Laurence is
trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory!
1630. Mr Laurence: What I was asking
Mr Chapman about just before the enforced adjournment was whether
he had had an opportunity to look at what is now document A23.
I do not want you to try and comment in any detail at all, Mr
Chapman, but we do see at the end of this document that it has
been suggested that there is a way in which 20 gates could be
fitted in where currently there are 16. Is there anything at all
that you want to say by way of comment on that?
(Mr Chapman) The adjournment, sir, very helpfully
gave me a chance to read the document. I do not have the advantage
of a scaled up measure of what is shown here. I can reach 19.3
gates by doing sums and I can accept that they might get to 20.
I think paragraph 2.5 gets 22 gates on the value added. I think
20 sounds like the upper bound. Without seeing anything else I
think they would struggle without compromising the station's value
to get more than 20 gates on the line. As I say, this is something
that I would normally do with Mr Spencer, go through and assess.
Doing the sums, they say in paragraph 2.3 that they could get
one extra gate in because they can take that part of the gateline
north of the pillars. I can see how they have got one gate in
there on the figure at the end. I have done the sums using their
figures and their figures are correct. They will be slimline gates
hopefully but it is never easy, and multiplying 16 gates times
the current gate width of 887mm gives you 14.192. Dividing that
by the new gate width gives you 18.3, so I can get one gate from
paragraph 2.3 and two gates from paragraph 2.4 and so by a bit
of judicious rearranging you can get to a 22nd gate. The figure
shows quite clearly that it would be a very difficult to get more
than 20.
1631. Mr Laurence: Mr Chapman, if the
Chairman would be assisted to have a more considered response
to this paper than you have had an opportunity to provide on the
hoof now, is that something which you would be happy to try and
assist with if we do not finish today?
1632. Sir Peter Soulsby: I am very reluctant
to ask for that because clearly it would require oral evidence
at some stage and we have not yet established what programme might
or might not be necessary to receive it.
1633. Mr Laurence: Sir, could I perhaps
assist with what was behind the question? You will have noticed
that I have not jumped up and down to complain about documents
that have been tendered before you. In fact, what has been tendered
before you in relation to gates and in relation to other issues
that are touched on in that paper and in the so-called position
paper, is to a large extent indistinguishable from evidence. A
Committee in the position of your Committee, sir, has always got
to decide in cases of this kind how much weight they can properly
give to documents of this sort where the maker of a statement
has not been tendered to give the evidence orally and has not
been cross-examined, where the contents of the documents have
not been made known in advance to the other side which could therefore
comment on them in their own evidence, et cetera.
1634. Sir Peter Soulsby: It may be that
the Committee will want to ask some further questions and as far
as I am concerned it is evident, looking at this plan, that is
what is being illustrated here is something that is, if I can
put it like this, very tight in there and may have other problems
associated with it. That is immediately evident to us and perhaps
it is not something that needs to be laboured extensively.
1635. Mr Laurence: The reason I have
put it tentatively to Mr Chapman as to whether he would be able
to assist the Committee if you wanted him to is that often in
these cases it is not clear at the end of the day what is going
to make the difference to the Committee's decision-making process.
1636. Sir Peter Soulsby: Unless any of
my colleagues feel differently I am sure the Committee will find
it clear from that drawing that it is not easy, it is tight, there
are problems associated with it.
1637. Mr Laurence: Sir, shall I finally
get back to Mr Chapman's evidence? Mr Chapman, it is right, is
it not, that what you have done is provide for the Committee details
to a layman's eyes to some considerable extent of your option
one, not very many details at all about what has been called option
six, and you have not been particularly enthusiastic about the
possibility that there is any other serious option while not ruling
it out altogether? Your evidence would be completely unnecessary,
would it not, if you already knew that the Committee had decided
to reject the case that Mr Weiss and Mr Spencer have been advancing
on predicted demand for extra capacity at Liverpool Street?
(Mr Chapman) that is correct.
1638. You are here because you apprehend that
it is possible that the outcome of these proceedings will be that
the Committee will feel there is a problem about which something
has to be done; is that right?
(Mr Chapman) That is correct.
1639. Can I therefore ask you, on the hypothesis
that that turns out to be the case, is it your judgment that a
decision how to deal with the resulting problem can be deferred?
(Mr Chapman) Deferring the solution means that
you have the problem of coming back at a later date to solve the
problem and there are many examples of how that works badly in
London at the moment. Solving a problem properly on day one is
the right way to do things. Take motorway widening. It costs the
same amount of money to build a new three or four lane motorway
as it does to put one extra lane on the edge, so in terms of long
term public money being used wisely, getting it right first time
is the cheapest option. Upgrading progressively by patching as
things happen is the most expensive way of fixing something.
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