Select Committee on Crossrail Bill Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 6680 - 6699)

  6680. Mr Binley: Exhibit 10, yes.

  6681. Mr Pugh-Smith: There is a one sheet summary.
  (Mr Schabas) This was all they gave us. This was their evaluation that they had done. The key point with the Central London alignment is EE Central Area, GB Rail Alignment, and if you look over to the right you see 3,623,000, which is the same price, it is not three times as much or twice as much, the central area is the same price. The other parts they were arguing were much, much more expensive, the line to Stansted and the line to Heathrow, and we have argued that those numbers are wrong too. As I have said, we do not have an army of engineers behind us, but we have built the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, the Jubilee Line extension and things like that, so we are not completely guessing in the dark. We also thought the 18 billion number was wrong, and I could explain the other lines, but I do not think they are relevant the central London route.

  6682. Mr Binley: Can I secondly ask, on the letter dated 30 September, which is your Exhibit 7, from Mr Berryman where in paragraph 1 under "Cost", sub-paragraph 2, he says, "Although we accept that it is possible that the benefits and in particular fare box income may be higher than the reference scheme", how does that relate or does it relate in any way to the statement that was made on 16 February 2001 to the effect that the evidence relating to the catchment area would mean that the river route would not attract the catchment and, therefore, I assume the fares that the decided route will?[18]

  (Mr Schabas) They seem to be contradictory, do they not?

  6683. It does seem to be contradictory to me.
  (Mr Schabas) I do not think I should be explaining Mr Berryman's letters, but I do not think they are contradictory actually and I can maybe explain on his behalf what he was trying to say.

  6684. Perhaps we could at some stage have Mr Berryman and he could tell us what he means by it because these questions are important.
  (Mr Schabas) The Superlink differs from Crossrail in two major ways. One way that it differs is that we are not sure that the route from Paddington to Canary Wharf which they have picked is the right one. We are not saying that the river is better or the northern route is better; we are not sure and we do not think they can be sure either. The second difference with Superlink is that we do not go to Shenfield and Maidenhead, but we go to Reading, we go to Milton Keynes, we go to Basingstoke, we go to places where frankly traffic growth is happening. These require some additional bits of railway to be built, not a lot, but a bit, seven or eight miles of tunnels, but tunnels are actually pretty cheap if you do not have stations in them. Those generate the extra revenue. I think what Mr Morris was saying back in 2000 was that under the river you would get less traffic in central London, and I think he may be right, he may be wrong, but the difference is going to be minor. There is going to be different traffic generation. If the route goes under Oxford Street or it goes under the river, it will generate traffic in different ways. What Mr Berryman is admitting here and agreeing with is that if you build the line up to Basingstoke and over to Stansted and Reading, of course you will generate more people and more revenue. He is saying that it will cost £18 billion to do it and that would bring us to Exhibit 10 where he has done some estimates to suggest that they did not, until they got Mr Morris involved and Mr Morris is not here, but until Richard Morris came in, they had nobody in their team who had real rail operational experience, they were engineers, and they added in a lot of costs which do not need to be there.

  6685. Can I stay with the same letter and go to section 3 of that letter where Mr Berryman says, "In particular it does not relieve the most grossly overcrowded sections of the rail network which are on the LUL lines". Do you think he is specifically referring to Liverpool Street there in any sense?
  (Mr Schabas) I think he is talking through his hat, with all due respect. I do not think he is qualified to say or know and, frankly, without some modelling, he could not really know. Superlink would relieve Liverpool Street very substantially because we are proposing that from Canary Wharf you would then swing up to Shenfield and take trains off the line into Liverpool Street. Half of the people who go to Liverpool Street now walk to work which is why Crossrail linking in Liverpool Street makes life worse for them because people in Romford will find themselves deep underground when they would rather be on the surface and walk to their offices. The other half are going all over the place and they do not want to go to Liverpool Street and Superlink relieves Liverpool Street in a different way.

  6686. On the Liverpool Street one, I need to understand whether you had heard the initial arguments about Liverpool Street where it was felt that the additional capacity, whilst it needed some change, could in the main be taken by the present ticket halls and so forth. Crudely, that was the argument, as I saw it, and yet if this is about Liverpool Street, Mr Berryman is now arguing, or the argument in 2.2 is, that your scheme does not relieve the most grossly overcrowded sections, and that is why I am specifically concerned about Liverpool Street.
  (Mr Schabas) I have not read all of the testimony on Liverpool Street, but what we did find under freedom of information was the generation of traffic that Crossrail will bring and what is amazing is that it was much less than they like to claim. Under the Department for Transport's own numbers, Crossrail will increase commuting into central London by 2.5per cent because, frankly, it is not going to make the journey from Romford or Shenfield much nicer than it is now, so I think it is probably true that at Liverpool Street they will not have a more severe crowding problem because, having spent £10 billion, they will not have many more passengers. It is, therefore, probably right, but in a kind of way which to me damns the whole project and, if that is the case, what is the point?

  6687. Early on in 2001 you were told that delay was not required and government pressure was suggesting there should be no delay and that was the inference of the statement you made to us.
  (Mr Schabas) Absolutely.

  6688. Then in October 2004 Mr Prideaux said, "I really have no locus to consider alternatives".
  (Mr Schabas) Mr Montague.

  6689. Sorry, yes.
  (Mr Schabas) Mr Prideaux is with us.

  6690. Yes, Prideaux is your man, my apologies. It is quite confusing stuff, is it not? He says, "I really have no locus to consider alternatives". I will ask later on, but do you think that is the same pressure, that those statements arose from the same pressure to drive this along and your view seems to be that that drive was so important as to suggest that they would not properly look at any alternatives? Is that what your evidence suggests?
  (Mr Schabas) Yes, minister!

  6691. Not quite! In fact, quite a long way off!
  (Mr Schabas) But I think that is exactly what they said.

  6692. Chairman: Mr Pugh-Smith, before your witness goes, it might be unsatisfactory, the route which has been chosen, but actually it is the instructions you have been given and, in that respect, counsel is correct. We really cannot approve this in any way, we are not authorised to do that and it is not within our powers.

  6693. Mr Pugh-Smith: We are not inviting you to do that.

  6694. Chairman: But the discussion we have had here has been useful because it has informed members of the Committee perhaps why the route which has been chosen is so central to the instructions you have been given, so, in that respect, I am grateful.

  6695. Mr Pugh-Smith: I am glad it is helpful in that regard, but, as I mentioned in opening on 30 March, there is a more fundamental legal point as well to which I will return in closing and that is the requirement in the Environmental Statement to consider alternatives adequately and we have called Mr Schabas to demonstrate that, in our submission—

  6696. Chairman: It is well within your remit to challenge that.

  6697. Mr Pugh-Smith: That is right.

  6698. Mrs James: From what you are saying, the plan you have been telling us about with all of your rail experience appears to be one that takes in a wider perspective and a longer-term future for rail, because you are talking about the Reading end of things and with us knowing what we poor, long-suffering travellers to south Wales experience on a regular basis, that is a particular pinch-point, so would you see that on the back of this the problems could be addressed with the plan that you are taking?
  (Mr Schabas) Yes, it has no difference which route you use through central London, but I think that Reading is another example that it is symptomatic because they were going to terminate at Maidenhead. I asked Cross London Rail because I have some friends in the organisation, "Why are you terminating at Maidenhead? Why don't you go to Reading?" They said, "We have to pay to resignal Reading which will cost £150 million". I said, "If you look on their website, Network Rail are actually planning to do that in 2011 anyway, so you don't have to pay for that". It was too late for them to realise this. Instead, if they do terminate at Maidenhead, it will cause real operational difficulties because they will have to run shuttle services as well on the diesel line. They will actually be adding more trains. There is no one solution to trains coming through to Reading and there is no simple solution, but it is symptomatic of them, as I said at the very beginning, being in too much of a hurry, haste makes waste, and they rushed ahead without thinking through all the issues.

  6699. Sir Peter Soulsby: Mr Schabas, what you have told us, as Ms Lieven has pointed out, does strike at the principle of the Bill and it is clearly beyond the remit of this Committee as given to us by the Commons, and I think in the circumstances it is quite right that Ms Lieven chose not to respond to it. Can I just, without putting words in your mouth, try and summarise what it is you have said to us. I think I am right in saying that you are saying to us that we are wasting our time, looking at a particular route, when in a broader sense it is probably not the best value for money, being based on an inadequate consideration of alternatives. I think perhaps you are also saying to us that it is most unlikely that it will ever be funded or built.
  (Mr Schabas) Yes, absolutely. It is a great tragedy really.


18   Committee Ref: A80, Corrspondence from Crossrail to GB Railways Group plc, 30 September 2002 (WESTCC-32605-047). Back


 
previous page contents next page

House of Commons home page Parliament home page House of Lords home page search page enquiries index

© Parliamentary copyright 2007
Prepared 14 November 2007