Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20920
- 20935)
20920. Chairman: I am grateful, Mr Lewis,
but we do not need protection.
20921. Mr Lewis: Of course.
20922. Chairman: The reason why we accepted
Mr Anderson coming along to actually put this on the record is
because Members did find it interesting and it was a new concept.
We realise where our boundaries lie and I think it is important
to put it on the record because other people who read our evidence
are people actually affected by the line and we thought it appropriate
that they should have the benefit of that.
20923. Mr Lewis: Thank you, sir. You
have heard evidence from Mr Anderson and there is nothing which
I can usefully add to that as regards the detail of what Canary
Wharf Group is offering. I do, however, want to say a few words
about what it is they want in return, namely the amendments to
the Bill that we have put forward today. I want to demonstrate
to you that what we are asking you to do is not unusual, by any
means. In fact, I want to leave you with the impression that it
is what the Promoters are asking you to do under this Bill that
is unusual, and I will do that with a short history lesson, if
I may.
20924. I want to take you back to the 19th Century
when private railway acts were coming out of this place's ears.
Sir, by way of example, and examples do not get much better, the
Great Western Railway was authorised by an Act of Parliament in
1835. As you would expect, the Act contained powers of compulsory
acquisition of land from Paddington to Bristol. There was a time
limit on the exercise of those powers; it was two years with no
powers to extend. Never mind that, it took Brunel less than three
years from Royal Assent to complete the line to Maidenhead, and
another three to finish the job. The Act gave the Great Western
Railway seven years to finish the construction of the whole railway.
The Crossrail Bill gives deemed planning permission for the works
if they are started within ten years, and even then there is a
power to extend the limit.
20925. Sir, it would be wrong for me to suggest
that things are the same now as they were in Victorian or pre-Victorian
times, so I move on to more modern examples to illustrate what
the normal practice is nowadays. I have looked through every railway
and tram Act and Transport and Works Order since 1980. It was
an interesting job, sir. These included 21 promoted by British
Rail and Network Rail, 15 by London Transport, eight for the London
Docklands Railway, 15 for the Greater Manchester Tram, seven for
Midland Metro, three for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link and 16 others,
making a total of 84. All of them contained powers of compulsory
acquisition but not one of them allowed compulsory acquisition
to take place later than five years after enactment, and certainly
none of them allowed the Secretary of State to make an order extending
the period allowed. They did not, of course, all authorise projects
of such scale as Crossrail, but they do include some substantial
projects such as the whole of the DLR, the Jubilee Line extension,
both of which, of course, go to Canary Wharf, Thameslink 2000,
the whole of the Manchester Tram system, and the West Coast Mainline
upgrade.
20926. Ms Lieven mentioned that the extension
provision in this Bill is well-precedented. I have not mentioned
Hybrid Acts yet, and there you will find the precedents for the
extendable period. I found two. The first was the Channel Tunnel
Act and the second the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act. They both
contain a five-year period extendable by order of the Secretary
of State. As far as I am aware, the powers to extend under those
two Acts were not exercised. One asks why they were needed. Other
Hybrid acts, such as Cardiff Bay Barrage, the QE2 Bridge and Severn
Bridges did not allow an extension to the five-year period.
20927. I would like to just mention, if I can,
briefly, sir, as well, Special Parliamentary Procedure. Please
do forgive me if I have got this wrong but I think you have got
some experience yourself of an SPP joint committee; an order that
my firm promoted for Barnsley. I am sure that you may well have
been on the joint committee which heard that, and if I have got
that wrong I am sorry.
20928. Chairman: I think you might be
wrong.
20929. Mr Lewis: Okay, I am sorry. I
have you mixed up with someone else. In any event, it goes to
demonstrate on that particular committee that, yes, I agree with
Ms Lieven this place does have power to knock out orders made
which are subject to Special Parliamentary Procedure, because
in that case the joint committee did. I would like to take it
one step further because I know that there is a case, and I am
afraid I do not know the detail, which involved a bypass at Okehampton
in Devon, which was a compulsory purchase order for a highway
which was subject to Special Parliamentary Procedure, presumably
because public open space was taken. I believe the facts to be
that the compulsory purchase order came before the House, a joint
committee considered it and the joint committee decided that the
order should not be confirmed. So joy all round, presumably, for
those who supported the open space. I believe that despite that
and because the Secretary of State wanted the road to be built
so badly he then promoted an Act of Parliament, which basically
overrode the decision of the joint committee.
20930. So, sir, it is not necessarily the end
of the road, I believe, if Special Parliamentary proceedings are
used. I must admit that particular case was pre-Human Rights Act,
so whether that particular Act would receive the approbation of
the Joint Committee on Human Rights now, I do not know, but I
just wanted to make clear that insofar as I am aware it is not
necessarily the end of the road, and if the Secretary of State
wants to have his way then he could promote another Bill.
20931. There is one more part to the history
tour, if I may, sir, and it is perhaps the most important one.
As you know, sir, this is not the first Crossrail Bill to come
before the House. The Private Bill promoted by British Rail and
London Regional Transport, which was thrown out in the early-1990s
by a Select Committee in the House of Commons, contained a time
limit of five years, and there was no power to extend. Sir, the
current scheme is not so dissimilar from the old one, so as to
bring it into some exceptional, new category, and all we are asking
you to do is to alter the Bill so that it is in line with nearly
every recent precedent. We would ask you to support these new
provisions and make the amendments requested.
20932. Ms Lieven: Sir, given that Mr
Lewis raised legal points in closing, can I claim a very short
right to reply? Three points, sir: first of all, he is quite right
to say that precedents are in Hybrid Bills, but the two Hybrid
Bills where the precedent arises, the Channel Tunnel Act and the
Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act, are the only railway Hybrid Bills
in anything like the recent past. So those are the two precedents
we rely on because those are the two that apply here.
20933. Secondly, I am instructed by Mr Irving,
our Parliamentary Agent, that it is standard in Scottish Bills
now to have a power to extend up to ten years. What weight the
Committee gives to that is up to the Committee, but there we have
a similar form of legislation and a standard provision of up to
ten years.
20934. Finally, Mr Lewis is quite right to say
that the Secretary of State can go through a Special Parliamentary
Procedure and then ultimately not accept the joint committee's
recommendations. However, if he chooses not to do so then he has
to promote a Bill to achieve the same end result. Self-evidently,
that has to itself be subject to Parliamentary scrutiny, or it
does not get past. So the point comes back to the same place,
which is that for any extension of these powers to take place
this House has control over what can and cannot happen. Thank
you, sir.
20935. Chairman: Thank you. That concludes
today's hearings. The Committee will next meet on Tuesday 20 March
at 10 am.
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