Examination of Witnesses (Questions 17300
- 17318)
17300. Chairman: Just to amplify that,
you would also confirm that if there was any contest over what
was a market value, then there is the Lands Tribunal to clarify
that?
17301. Ms Lieven: Absolutely, and that
comes on to point three, sir. What Mr Saunderson is asking us
to do, and I genuinely do not understand why he would rather this
route, is to go on the non-statutory route of advance purchase
for which we have no parliamentary authority to spend money to
start with and which would fall outside the statutory protection
in conformity with the Human Rights Act that he would get if he
served a blight notice where, if he did not agree with the compensation,
he could go to the Lands Tribunal. Unless there is something that
I am completely missing, that is the straightforward statutory
route which the Secretary of State has power to take where, if
Mr Saunderson does not like the conclusion on compensation, he
can go to the Lands Tribunal and if he does not like the decision,
and there is no reason why he should not for the reasons I have
just given, he can go to judicial review. It is all completely
straightforward, up-front, open—
17302. Mr Binley: And expensive.
17303. Ms Lieven: No, no, sir, in my
submission, not necessarily at all. Serving a blight notice is
not in the least bit expensive. I am absolutely sure, having heard
Mr Saunderson today, that he is more than capable of doing it
himself. If, as seems overwhelmingly likely, there is no contest,
then the blight notice is accepted and then in terms of compensation,
it is only cost if ultimately it goes to the Lands Tribunal and
he is seeking a value which the Lands Tribunal does not give him.
As long as it is dealt with either by negotiation or he seeks
a higher value and we are being unreasonable and pay less, then
he gets his costs, so, in my submission, that is a complete answer
to the problem.
17304. Can I just put it on the record that
we are doing nothing underhand. We are not attempting to twist
or abuse the statute at all. What I have told this Committee is
on instructions and on expert advice from Mr Smith who is highly
qualified in this area. There is nothing funny going on here at
all.
17305. Chairman: Mr Saunderson, we cannot
do anything until the end when we make our report and Parliament
decides. Certainly I have given you an indication that we have
opened a door. Whether you go through it or not is entirely up
to you. Whether, when you go through that door, it reaches the
conclusion which you find acceptable is up to you, but we have
opened the door and whether you pursue it, I cannot advise you
on.
17306. Mr Saunderson: Could I just say,
as I think we did have the answer, that there have been no blight
notices served under the present Crossrail Bill. I believe, and
I am not an expert, this is a terribly complex area, blight, which
is why I am being so nervous about it, but I believe that you
cannot serve a blight notice on a Safeguarding Order. I have had
that advice in the past. I believe that I cannot serve a valid
blight notice and that is my belief.
17307. Chairman: In a final attempt at
clarity, we have been told this morning on a number of occasions
and this afternoon that if a blight notice application was made,
then it would be looked at and given very, very serious consideration.
What I have said to you is that that will be dealt with in time
when we are still sitting and we will view this matter in the
course of any response to it. There is a first for everything
in life and, as politicians, we see it on a fairly regular basis
and sometimes it comes back to haunt us, but nevertheless there
is a first, so why not suck it and see or not as the case may
be, but that is your decision. Perhaps you would like to conclude
with your summing up.
17308. Mr Saunderson: Yes, thank you,
just a short conclusion. My suggestion is that the five things
I have listed down are, I believe, the correct way for the Promoters
to proceed to provide certainty to the owners through a non-conditional
purchase. The sums of money are tiny in relation to the £300
million which has already been spent by Crossrail, so for them
to plead poverty is absolutely unacceptable. That is £300
million which has been spent on fees so far, I understand from
the papers, and you probably know more about it than me.
17309. I believe the Petitioners should be made
whole in respect of their loss of income over the last 15 years,
and that is set out in the hardship claim.
17310. I believe that I should be made whole
in respect of the pre-safeguarding equity that I held, and again
that is laid out as £3.2 million.
17311. I believe the costs that I have provided
to Mr Trott of London Transport in 1997 should be paid and again
in terms of the value that we added to the Farringdon East ticket
hall in getting the City Corporation to approve the bulk and uses
of the over-station development as that is of immense value to
Crossrail/London Underground/the Department for Transport, whoever
you like to name as the owner. They have that already achieved
and the costs, therefore, should be paid as laid out. I understand
the point about the pre-emption rights on the development and
I take the point of the policy that there is and I am aware of
that.
17312. Point E is of pro-rata carried interest,
which is my suggestion, to compensate to some extent for having
an asset frozen for nearly 16 years which I feel, if nothing else,
the Committee should endeavour in future to ensure that the Promoters
either put up or shut up and they should not be allowed to freeze
an asset for 16 years. That is the biggest thing in general terms
which I would like the Committee to take away. It does not do
the business world any good, it does not do the Government any
good and it wastes a lot of time and energy in the process. They
could have bought this site from us years ago and we would not
be having these issues today. We would still be employing 180
people and hopefully more. We have 180 lives that have been changed
because of not being able to be employed in this location because
of Crossrail. We have tenants who have had to move. It has had
a devastating effect on so many people and all through something
which so easily could have been avoided, the very few sums of
money in relation to the £300 million which has already been
spent on fees alone, so the value which Mr Smith mentioned that
£10 million was a lot, I do not know where he got that £31
million from and I was quite disturbed that he read that out without
showing us the letter, but obviously there were losses of other
companies that I owned that went down because of this, but it
was hard to recall the figure when I had not seen a copy of the
letter recently.
17313. So there are a lot of lessons to be learned,
in my view, that the land should have been bought and the project
should have gone ahead or it should have been unfrozen, but it
should not have been left frozen for 16 years, in my submission.
Thank you.
17314. Chairman: Can I just remind you
that we will be in touch because we will be getting in touch with
the Parliamentary Ombudsman to see what happened to your request
which you made, and I suggest that you get in touch with your
agents at the time to see why they did not forward on to you some
correspondence which was mentioned.
17315. Mr Binley: I just wanted to leave
an aide-memoire on the record for my own use and hopefully for
consideration by the Committee when they come to consider this
more fully. I would like to make the point that this is at this
stage without any prejudice whatsoever because it is my initial
feelings, but I have no doubt that property prices fell and that
is part of a business risk that anybody would take in these circumstances,
but I have equally no doubt that it is almost impossible to consider
as a proper financial risk the sort of hurdles, the sort of difficulties
that had to be faced in this matter. I understand that the machinery
of State is heavy, often impersonal and seeming uncaring, but
that is the nature of the machinery of State. That does not, however,
mean that our job is not to improve that and to change it so that
this unacceptable risk be removed because I do believe your final
words, that the impact upon the business and commercial community
is an important one. Often I think government, in its unthinking
way, not because it means to be malicious, but in its unthinking
way, often creates situations that, if it had a chance to think
about in their entirety, it would not do, so I think we need to
take that into account and that is why I think those remarks were
important.
17316. Ms Lieven: Sir, can I just put
two points on the record about blight notice which Mr Saunderson
referred to in closing so that he understands the point. It is
not correct to say that you cannot serve a blight notice on a
Safeguarding Order. That is absolutely clear. I do not know where
his advice came from, it does not matter now, but it is not correct,
and we have accepted a blight notice on a Safeguarding Order on
Crossrail 2.
17317. The other point to make on the record
is that if a blight notice is served, we will pay reasonable surveyor
and legal costs of that process.
17318. Chairman: I am sure Mr Saunderson
will take that away with his advisers and consider it. Can I thank
everyone. We now conclude today's business and we will next meet
on 17 October at 10 am.
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