Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20
- 39)
20. The Bill was introduced to the House of
Commons in February of 2005. It spent some 21 months before the
House of Commons Select Committee which heard 205 of the 466 Petitions
lodged against the Bill. The other 261 Petitions were either withdrawn
or the Petitioner chose not to appear before the Committee usually
following discussion with the Promoter. A very large range of
issues were raised and considered by the Commons Committee on
almost every conceivable topic. The Select Committee requested
various amendments to the Bill, the most significant of which
were the provision for a new station at Woolwich and an additional
ticket hall at Liverpool Street Station. Both of these were brought
forward through additional provisions during the Committee process.
21. The Select Committee produced two sets of
interim decisions in its final report dealing with those Petitions
where they thought that further action should be taken. The House
of Commons Select Committee therefore gave this Bill close and
detailed scrutiny.
22. Where Petitioners petitioned in the House
of Commons on the same points, and the House of Commons dealt
with their Petition, then we will be drawing this, as your Lordship
has requested, to the attention of the Committee. Of course the
Committee cannot question the principle of the Bill approved by
both the House of Commons and your Lordships' House at Second
Reading. The Promoter has decided, as your Lordship has already
mentioned, not to make any formal challenge to the locus of any
of the Petitioners, however where we believe that the Petition
raises issues which traverse the principle of the Bill or otherwise
go outside the reasonable scope of petitioning on a hybrid Bill,
we shall raise that in our written response to the Petitions that
raise those particular issues and will inform the Committee when
we open on that particular Petition. This applies particularly,
for example, to those who petitioned on the basis that an alternative
route for the railway is materially different from that approved
by your Lordships' House and by the House of Commons at Second
Reading where they contend that an alternative ought to be taken.
23. The most significant event for the project
since the introduction of the Bill in the House of Commons is
that this scheme now has funding. We will refer to the funding
package in due course, but the key point is that the project is
now funded and ready to go once the necessary powers are secured.
The Committee can amend the Bill, but any rehybridising amendment
cannot be approved by this Committee without referring it back
to a House of Commons Select Committee, involving the project
in very long delay. Therefore, we very much hope that matters
raised in Petitions before your Lordships' House can be dealt
with otherwise than amending the Bill in this way.
24. I turn then next to documents which are
relevant to the Committee's deliberations. The principal documents
with which the Committee will become familiar and which we will
refer to during the opening and, indeed, during subsequent hearings
are:
25. (1) The Bill as amended by the other House;[4]
26. (2) The House of Commons Select Committee
report;[5]
27. (3) The House of Commons Select Committee
Interim Decisions of July 2006 and October 2007 and the Promoter's
responses to those decisions;[6]
28. (4) The Environmental Statement which consists
of the original Environmental Statement and its addenda with four
Amendment of Provisions Environmental Statements and four Supplementary
Environmental Statements with their non-technical summaries which
I will deal with in more detail later on in this opening;
29. (5) Your Lordship has already mentioned
the House of Lords Select Committee webpage, Crossrail also has
a webpage which contains all of the relevant documentation in
terms of the environmental assessment, the technical reports and
the Information Papers.[7]
I will turn to the Information Papers for a moment and your Lordship
mentioned earlier the large red bundle of those. These set out
the Promoter's position on a wide range of topics which are relevant
to the Crossrail project. They are intended to be a useful guide
to Petitioners and, indeed, to all of those who are interested
in or affected by Crossrail. We will be referring to them in our
communications with Petitioners;
30. (6) We will have Petition Response Documents,
PRDs for short. These are our response to matters raised in each
of the individual Petitions. They are sent to the petitioners
at least two weeks before they are due to appear in Committee
and we aim to achieve three weeks in advance if at all possible;
31. (7) There are environmental minimum requirements,
EMRs for short, which I will deal with later;
32. (8) The Register of Undertakings: we have
compiled a register of all the undertakings and assurances that
have been given. This will continue to be updated up to Royal
Assent and this document aims to be a comprehensive list of undertakings
so that people affected by the project can go to one document
and see what undertakings they can rely upon;
33. (9) The Statement of Reasons commended to
the House of Commons by the Minister at Third Reading which is
published in Command Paper 7250, which I will also return to.[8]
34. I turn to the need and support for Crossrail.[9]
As your Lordships will be aware, Crossrail is a massive project
which is designed to meet the transport challenge facing London
in the future. It has three key objectives: first of all, to support
the development of London as a world city and its role as the
financial centre of Europe and the UK; secondly, to support the
economic growth of London and its regeneration areas by tackling
congestion and the lack of capacity on the existing network; and,
thirdly to improve rail access into and within London.
35. The concept of an east-west across London
has been around since the early 20th century. The original Crossrail
concept was developed following the 1989 Central London Rail Study,
carried out by the DoT and others, and the alignment was safeguarded
in 1991.
36. The current scheme has been developed by
Cross London Rail Links Limited. CLRL, for short, is the company
jointly owned by the Department for Transport and Transport for
London that is developing the project design and is supporting
the promotion of this Bill.
37. I turn then to the transport case.[10]
The need for the project is overwhelming. For many years London
has mainly depended on a transport system built by the Victorians
and Crossrail will allow the capital to cope with the demands
of the 21st Century. The underground network suffers from overcrowding
on a daily basis and all central sections of tube lines operate
in excessive capacity during the morning peak and I am sure your
Lordships will all have their own experiences of the current state
of the network.
38. Many of the central area stations have inadequate
space to allow free and comfortable movement. Again, I am sure
your Lordships will have your own experience of that too. Commuter
trains on the over-ground network also suffer from overcrowding,
amongst the most severe are the Great Eastern services into Liverpool
Street. All these problems can only grow as the economy of London
and the South East grows. In London alone employment is forecast
to increase by around 636,000 to five million from 2001 to 2016
and population to increase over the same period by 800,000. Up
to 48 per cent of total employment growth is expected to take
place in Central London which, of course, places particular demands
on public transport.
39. Between 2001 and 2016 demand for peak travel
to and from London and across the South East is forecast to increase
significantly with flows into Central London during the morning
rush hour, for example, rising by almost 25 per cent compared
with 2001 levels. We have put up a table, if your Lordships can
see, which gives some examples of crowding and crowding reduction
which Crossrail will bring between 2001 and 2016.[11]
I will turn to one example which is the Central Line and this
applies TfL planning guideline capacity. You will see at the moment
on the Stratford to Chancery Lane part of the Central Line you
will see it is already 22 per cent above guideline capacity for
2001. 2016 without Crossrail will have reached the impossible
position that it will be 38 per cent above planning guideline
capacity, but with Crossrail the position will be redressed. It
will still be above planning guideline capacity but it will be
reduced to 19 per cent, less than the figure at which it exceeded
guideline capacity in 2001. You can see similarly the position
on the other lines.
4 Crossrail Bill [HL Bill 14 (2007-08)] Back
5
House of Commons Select Committee on the Crossrail Bill, First
Special Report Session 2006-07, Crossrail Bill,
HC 235 Back
6
Oral evidence taken before the House of Commons Select Committee
on the Crossrail Bill on 25 July 2006, HC (2006-07) 235-IV, Ev
1555-1557; HC (2006-07) 235-V, 11 October 2006, Ev 1582-1588;
12 July 2007, Ev 2063-2066; and 9 October 2007, Ev 2067-68 Back
7
Crossrail Ref: P1, http://billdocuments.crossrail.co.uk/
(LINEWD-OPN1-005) Back
8
http://www.official-documents.gov.uk Back
9
Crossrail Ref: P1, Need and Support for Crossrail (LINEWD-OPN1-006) Back
10
Crossrail Ref: P1, Transport Case (LINEWD-OPN1-007) Back
11
Crossrail Ref: P1, Crowding reduction on the London Underground
Network (2001and 2016) (LINEWD-OPN1-008) Back
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