Select Committee on Crossrail Bill Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 21020 - 21039)

  21020. Chairman: We will return now to the next petition, which is a return to the petition of Woodseer and Hanbury Residents Association. Mr Whale, can I just say at the beginning I realise that you were not aware that gowns and wigs were worn. I just put it on the record that it is for you to check that. We are not going to stop you from proceeding today but you are a lawyer and it is one of the oldest professions in the world, so to speak, and I think you appreciate that your colleagues in your industry are having to wear these gowns you have omitted to do that on this occasion and I think you should feel a little bit guilty about that fact.

  21021. Mr Whale: I do, and I apologise. No discourtesy is meant. I am afraid it was neither checked nor communicated to me. I am about as formal as I could be without gowns.

  21022. Chairman: I think it is pretty clear that you are still a lawyer without the gown.

  21023. Mr Whale: Indeed, I am.

  21024. Chairman: Anyway, that point has been made. Before we proceed I would like Mr Elvin to remind the Committee.

  21025. Mr Elvin: Sir, you will recall that this petition last came before the Committee on Day 68 on 31 January when the Committee adjourned the matter just after it had begun on the basis that certain matters were raised in the evidence of Mr Schabas. You asked for the matter to be dealt with by correspondence. That, in fact, occurred. Letters were received on behalf of the Woodseer and Hanbury Residents Association with material from Mr Schabas, Mr Carpenter and some other material. That was followed shortly by a letter from the Spitalfields Small Business Association. I wrote to you on behalf of the Promoter on 1 March comprehensively responding to the matters raised in both sets of correspondence.

  21026. Sir, so far as this evening is concerned you will have it on the record, because I raised this last time and, indeed, so far as the letter is concerned of 1 March, the major concern that is being raised with the Committee by this Residents Association is not an AP3 matter, which is the question of the alternative tunnel alignments. That is a matter which was ventilated on the main Bill petitions last summer. It is a matter which does not arise, as I informed the Committee last time, as a result of AP3. I have set out a number of matters which are pertinent to that in the letter which, unless you want me to read them into the record, I will not, they are set out in some detail as to where, in fact, alignments can be seen to have been considered.

  21027. That being so, you wrote to the Association yourself making it clear that although the Association could come back on AP3 matters they did not have locus to raise other matters not relevant to AP3. I am sure your clerk will have advised you on the locus provisions and the provisions in Erskine May. The interest in the petition has got to arise in relation to the matter which is being petitioned, which is AP3. Thank you, sir.

  21028. Chairman: Thank you. Mr Whale?

  21029. Mr Whale: Sir, matters seem to have taken another curious turn. Those behind me I could hear express some surprise at the reference to my learned friend's 1 March letter which I have never seen and I am told that they have never seen. Quite how that has come about I know not but it is the first that they and I have ever heard of it. I do not know if Mr Elvin can help the Committee and myself on how it was communicated or by what method.

  21030. Chairman: It is a surprise to me, Mr Whale, because it was my understanding that it was copied to the Petitioner.

  21031. Mr Elvin: Sir, the position as I understand it from Mr Walker is it is a letter to you and we left it to the Committee to decide whether or not the Committee thought it appropriate to copy it. I can certainly let Mr Whale have a copy.

  21032. Chairman: Mr Whale, you have got a copy now. Do you want a short adjournment to read it?

  21033. Mr Whale: I would be very grateful for that, sir.

  21034. Chairman: We will adjourn for ten or 15 minutes.

After a short break

  21035. Chairman: Mr Whale, can I first of all apologise. It is not normal that such things as this happen; we try for it not to happen at all, and all I can do is apologise in that respect.

  21036. Mr Whale: I am very grateful for that. It does confirm that we have not had sight of this letter before. Obviously I have had a brief chance to look at it and to take some instructions. With your leave, I have got some observations on it and then what I would regard as more substantive reasons as to why you ought to hear the Association this evening. Are you content for me to proceed in that fashion?

  21037. Chairman: I would just like to point out to you what we have already communicated to you, which is about AP3 and the southern alignment and all the debate which we have had about that. You will appreciate that we, as a Committee, have been assigned a job by Parliament and within that they have already decided on the alignment and where stations should be.

  21038. Mr Whale: If you are referring to your own recent letter to the Association, I have that well in mind, indeed I think it is in the bundle that we have provided for you. It is my job, as it were, to try to persuade you that the evidence that we would like to adduce tonight is referable to AP3, and that is what I would like to do.

  21039. Chairman: You do it for a living, you have got to try and put it in that context.


 
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