Examination of Witnesses (Questions 14860
- 14879)
14860. Maybe I did not make the point clear
enough, Mr Smith. The point I was asking you about was that those
very issues, which we quite accept are terribly important, will
be considered by Network Rail and then by the ORR in determination
of the access option.
(Mr Smith) I am glad to
hear that.
14861. Well, you are the expert, Mr Smith, not
me, but those are my instructions. Does that contradict your understanding?
(Mr Smith) I would just
repeat myself, that we have not actually timetabled an access
option in this industry before. The process for doing that has
not yet been agreed, but if the instructions you have are that
Network Rail will do this and the ORR will review it and take
a decision on the access option even if it runs contrary to the
interests of the Promoter, we will watch that with interest.
14862. Then as far as timetabling is concerned,
I want to ask you a couple of questions. The Timetable Working
Group, of which Mr Watson was the independent Chair and he gave
evidence last week, EWS were on that Working Group, were they
not?
(Mr Smith) We attended that
Working Group, yes.
14863. Can we have up a copy of the Timetable
Working Group Report, which is P106. Do you have a copy of that,
Mr Smith?
(Mr Smith) I do not think
I do, not within the myriad papers on my desk.
14864. If we could turn to page 14 of it, first
of all, as far as freight growth is concerned, and I am sure you
are far more familiar with this document than I am, so hopefully
I will not have to read out great chunks of it, but it is correct,
is it not, that the Timetable Working Group did take into account
forecasts for freight growth up to 2015?[53]
(Mr Smith) They were advised
of those figures, yes.
14865. And they took them into account in their
timetabling work and conclusions, did they not?
(Mr Smith) The issue with
the freight growth is that the only thing the Timetable Working
Group have been able to prove is that the timetable that exists
in 2004 operates with Crossrail services. They may have had the
freight forecasts for 2015, but, as I said earlier on, they did
not demonstrate and were not able to come to the conclusion that
the 2015 timetable would work either on the Great Western or on
the Great Eastern.
14866. Can we just focus on the question please,
Mr Smith, and look at the top paragraph. What that says, and I
am not asking you about the conclusion, I am just asking you about
what they took into account, the second line of that says, "The
initial stage of the freight route utilisation strategy work has
been to take forecasts from rail freight users", presumably
including yourselves, "and potential users together with
the rail freight operators and to put these together to create
a single forecast for different route sections of the network",
so those forecasts were taken into account, were they not?
(Mr Smith) Those forecasts
were advised to the Industry Working Group.
14867. That was the appendix and then, as far
as the scope for growth is concerned, if we go back a few pages
into the body of the report itself at page 8 of the exhibit.[54]
We can see there in the small paragraph above "Further work",
that so far as the Great Western is concerned, the conclusion
of the Freight Working Group was that, "On the Great Western
the view of the Group is that the capacity enhancement provided
as part of the Crossrail scheme is, with some minor tweaking,
adequate to accommodate predicted freight growth".
(Mr Smith) That was without any
testing of the engineering access or freight ban.
14868. Well, that brings us on, I think, to
the last point on capacity which is the freight ban. Perhaps I
can ask the Committee to look at Network Rail's exhibits, page
47.[55]
This is the addendum to the access option policy paper. I assume
you have seen this before.
(Mr Smith) We have not seen this
before. The first time we saw that was this morning when we were
handed a copy of the Network Rail exhibits.
14869. What this says, in essence, is that there
is no longer intended to be any freight ban by reason of Crossrail.
Yes?
(Mr Smith) That is what
it says.
14870. There is no equivocation about that,
is there?
(Mr Smith) Correct.
14871. Mr George: Is that a commitment?
14872. Ms Lieven: Yes, that is what it
says, that the document is a commitment. Access option—your
EWS23, which is page 73 of your exhibits, this is where you have
set out a number of points about the access option, most of which,
I think, have already been dealt with and I can come back to them
in closing, but there is one point I wanted to ask you about under
"Duration".[56]
You say here that the access option would confer rights of capacity
for 30 years, whereas other train operators have been permitted
track access contracts only over a much shorter period, and 10
years in the case of EWS. You say, "This conflicts with European
law which prohibits the granting of access agreements greater
than 10 years unless there are exceptional circumstances, which
is not the case with Crossrail". Do you see that?
(Mr Smith) Yes.
14873. I think the provision that you are referring
to is paragraph 18 of the Railway Infrastructure (Access and Management)
Regulations 2005 and the relevant provision is 18(9).[57]
I am sorry to burden the Committee with a matter such as this.
It is quite important to understand the context of the words "exceptional
circumstances". What that says is, "The framework agreement
for a period in excess of 10 years may only be made in exceptional
circumstances", so far so correct, Mr Smith, "in particular
where there is large-scale and long-term investment and particularly
where such investment is covered by contractual commitments".
Now, can we agree that the Crossrail project is both a large-scale
and a long-term investment?
(Mr Smith) That is a subjective
comment whether it is long-term or large-scale and also there
is a mile of difference between 10 years and 30 years, quite a
few years in between.
14874. Yes, there is an element of subjectivity
in it, Mr Smith, but I would have thought we could agree that
a £10 billion project was a large-scale project, could we
not?
(Mr Smith) There are large-scale
projects throughout the railway network, including, for example,
the upgrading of the West Coast Main Line which cost in excess
of £10 billion, but I am not aware that the operator there
was seeking a 30-year access agreement.
14875. So you would not be prepared to agree
that Crossrail was a large-scale and long-term investment?
(Mr Smith) I am saying that
there are many large-scale and long-term investments and that
the length of contract associated with those varies considerably.
14876. Finally, Mr Smith, site specifics. I
am not going to go through the sites, but it is a fact, is it
not, that EWS and Crossrail have had a number of meetings about
particular sites and, in particular, two meetings in March and
April where we went through with you site by site what we needed
to do on each site and what interests we needed to take?
(Mr Smith) You did that
up to a point, but, as you were saying earlier on, a number of
designs are not yet completed, so you were unable to be absolutely
specific about the works on each site.
14877. No, but it would be quite wrong for the
Committee to go away with the impression that until you came here
today you had no idea as to what parts of the sites we wanted
and how long we wanted them for, would it?
(Mr Smith) It varies from
site to site.
14878. I will ask Mr Berryman to give further
information on that. Thank you very much, Mr Smith.
Re-examined by Mr George
14879. Mr George: Mr Smith, if I take
Langley and Slough, have you and EWS the slightest idea what precisely
is required, which part of the sites and for how long?
(Mr Smith) They are two
of the sites where we do not have an idea of what is wanted and
for how long or where.
53 Crossrail Ref: P106, Crossrail Timetable Working
Group (LINEWD-GEN13-014). Back
54
Crossrail Ref: P106, Crossrail Timetable Working Group, Further
Work (LINEWD-GEN13-008). Back
55
Crossrail Ref: P106, Crossrail Access Option-A Policy Paper:
Addendum, May 2006 (LINEWD-21605-047). Back
56
Committee Ref: A168, The proposed Access Option as set out in
the Access Option Policy Paper, DfT, 30 March 2006: EWS objections
(LINEWD-19605-073). Back
57
Crossrail Ref: P106, Framework agreements, Railway Infrastructure
Access and Management Regulations 2005 (S.I., 2005 No. 3049),
www.opsi.gov.uk (SCN-20060711-005). Back
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