Examination of Witnesses (Questions 2260
- 2279)
2260. MR MIDDLETON: Yes, but I felt really
that if you are going to bark up the wrong tree, as I think this
scheme is doing, it is misconceived, but you compare Thameslink
with Crossrail, if you can have something north-south which is
exactly what everyone wants, why can you not have east-west? I
appreciate the problems that the scheme has got, but there is
no debate in these bills on the strategy. If you read the debate,
it does not compare regional with local, like this minimal Crossrail
scheme currently proposes, there is no debate as such about the
strategy. I can understand the process, but it may well be better
to start again and say, "Hang on, does this make a lot of
sense having only a very slow Crossrail operation?" If I
were sitting on this, "Well, what are the options?"
I can understand you are there to look at the details of the Bill,
fine, but I would want someone to say, "Is this the right
approach? Should we ignore the regions outside London? Should
it be a minimum London Underground-type operation?" I can
appreciate the Committee's problems, but I would have thought
whatever you write in the introduction to your final report you
can say whatever you like about the strategy.
2261. LORD SNAPE: Can I say, at the outset,
Mr Middleton, I would have thought that lots of people in the
railway industry would have had a great deal of sympathy for the
view that you have expressed, but you have heard from the Chairman,
our powers are fairly limited. Let me ask you a direct question,
if it was a choice between Crossrail and nothing at all, what
would your view be? Crossrail as it presently stands or nothing
at all, what would your view be?
2262. MR MIDDLETON: I would park it and
go back and start again. I think it is nonsensical to do what
is going on at the moment. I think the difference is so huge.
The Promoter's approach would be a fair enough approach if it
was a near-miss Crossrail but, as it stands, it is nowhere, it
is not a near miss, it is the complete opposite of Thameslink
2000.
2263. LORD SNAPE: Whilst accepting that,
you will be aware there is a strong body of opinion in London
from the Mayor downwards that this scheme ought to go ahead and
their views have to be listened to as well. Do you agree with
that?
2264. MR MIDDLETON: Yes, I can understand
the London view. You get people in Canary Wharf, the City, Bond
Street and Heathrow and, as long as those four places are joined,
life is solved, but a lot of London, the Mayor, ignores the fact
that the regions around London is where the real growth is happening,
both in housing and a lot of employment. He relies on getting
people in and out of London as well as shuffling them around London.
2265. LORD SNAPE: You would accept the
Chairman's point of view, that if this scheme is "parked",
to use your own words, we might be coming back in a similar form
in ten years' time, we would have lost another decade so far as
connecting up parts of London's railways are concerned?
2266. MR MIDDLETON: I think you are losing
this opportunity now in driving this minimal scheme forward rather
than looking at the big picture for London and the wider World
City region and you should go for a dynamic addition to the national
rail network and not a downgrading to London Underground. If it
is going to take two hours to get from one end of Crossrail to
the other, no-one is going to use it unless they have to. Okay,
the central section, some people will hop on and off.
2267. LORD SNAPE: I am afraid not in
this place nor in the other one do we do dynamism particularly
well, whether in railway matters or others. I have a great deal
of sympathy for your view, but I think, as the Chairman has made
quite plain, our powers are extremely limited.
2268. CHAIRMAN: The strict answer to
Lord Snape's question is do nothing?
2269. MR MIDDLETON: Sorry?
2270. CHAIRMAN: Is that right?
2271. MR MIDDLETON: No.
2272. CHAIRMAN: Abandon it?
2273. MR MIDDLETON: No, do a regional
Crossrail.
2274. LORD SNAPE: Forgive me, Lord Chairman,
I did put the point to you, if we did not have the option, and
we do not in this Committee, of a regional Crossrail, I put the
specific question to you, do we go ahead with this or abandon
it? I think your view was we should abandon it.
2275. MR MIDDLETON: I would go ahead
with the tunnels on the basis that we will get halfway there in
one go and then we will do the proper connections at each end.
2276. LORD SNAPE: You are beginning to
get a grip of parliamentary procedures now, Mr Middleton. That
is usually the way we do things. It might not be the right way,
but it is usually the way we do things.
2277. MR MIDDLETON: It is a nonsensical
way of doing a £16 billion project, that we are going to
build it and then we are really going to get the right connections
at each end in the year dot and it becomes much more difficult
if they are not part of the original approach.
2278. CHAIRMAN: I think we may have difficulty
in telling Parliament that is your view.
2279. LORD YOUNG OF NORWOOD GREEN: I
would like to congratulate you in getting it all together and
I must admit I am sort of tempted by your integrated, holistic
analysis but there is a couple of points. Really what we are saying
to you, is half a Crossrail cake better than none? Even you start
to waiver a little bit at that point because there is nothing
necessarily to say this could not be adapted/extended in the future,
that is one point made to you. Two key questions I did want to
ask you, one is you seem to be making light of the congestion
that currently exists on the central points of London Underground
at the moment to the point where often stations are closed because
they are full to overflowing, you are saying it is going to do
little or nothing to relieve that. The other point that you make
is that it will be a financial disaster anyway because it will
not attract enough passenger fares. I might be paraphrasing you
unfairly, I am not meaning to do that, but there is a couple of
key points I want to be sure you are saying because I also want
to make sure that Crossrail, the Promoters, answer these points.
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