Examination of Witnesses (Questions 2780
- 2799)
2780. CHAIRMAN: As far as I am concerned,
you can use any documents you like. We do not want anything at
the moment.
2781. MR CARPENTER: So far we are in
a situation where we are going to have to wait until we have heard
from the Information Commissioner. Until that point when either
we receive the documentation from Crossrail or the Information
Commissioner comes back to us or—
2782. CHAIRMAN: I do not think we will
be waiting for you. We will be dealing with the Spitalfields'
Petitions.
2783. MR CARPENTER: Our residents' rights
will be breached if we are not heard. We have a right to be heard
and we have a right to full disclosure of information and we are
not getting that. We are coming to you because we do not receive
much information from Crossrail and it takes months and months
and months. It is not a question of us suddenly saying we want
something; this is an ongoing problem of not receiving information
or receiving it at the last minute.
2784. CHAIRMAN: It may be, Mr Carpenter,
but the truth of the matter is that there are rules for what Parliament
can do and what this Select Committee can do and we have to abide
by those rules. We cannot break the rules simply because you would
like us to.
2785. MR CARPENTER: I am sorry; I was
not in any way asking you to break the rules. But I would like,
one, the information, and also the Petitioners would like the
chance to argue the case with the full information. We have done
our best to divide everything up in a way that would make it most
meaningful for you.
2786. CHAIRMAN: All the other issues
in the petitions are going to be perfectly easy to handle and
to present. They are quite clear cut. I know exactly what they
are and we look forward to hearing from all of you about them.
But, as to an alternative route for the track, it may be within
our powers to hear it but it is certainly not within our powers
to give any effect to it. I will leave it to you. The Spitalfields'
Petitions are going ahead this week. If you do not have any information
which you would like to have had in order to present them, I fear
that is just too bad. Mr Elvin, have I missed anything out?
2787. MR ELVIN: Perhaps I could add two
points which Mr Carpenter should hear. Firstly, the alignment
in which he is interested—which you can see on that plan
is marked "Alignment B"—was not the subject of
the report which was produced in October of last year in respect
of which Mr Carpenter seeks disclosure of the draft.[3]
The draft and the report simply do not deal with that alignment.
That was an alignment discarded five or six years ago. It was
dealt with in a report in March 2001 which was disclosed to Mr
Carpenter at least a year ago. A letter dated 5 July from Mr Neate
at the Department of Transport lists the documents that had been
provided to Mr Carpenter and his Association—a letter to
them both.[4]
You will see on the second page "Issued to Spitalfields Small
Business Association and WHRA by CLRL (25 January 2007)"
and, below that, "Issued to Spitalfields Small Business Association
and WHRA by CLRL (29 January 2007)" and associated with those
headings there is a series of groups. In the second group there
is a report dated March 2001. That has been with Mr Carpenter
and his Association since January of last year. That is the report
dealing with the alignment in which he is interested. The alignment
in which he is interested is not dealt with in the drafts of the
reports he wishes to have disclosed. Even were the Information
Commissioner to give him everything he wanted, it was dealing
with other versions of the southern alignment. Waiting for that
is going to get him nowhere at all. The second point is, since
Mr Carpenter is not the person from Spitalfields presenting the
case one the alignments, I am not sure how his case is prejudiced
at all because he is presenting on other issues and others, as
he has said, are presenting on alignments. I do not understand
Mr Carpenter to be saying that the presentation of his part of
the Spitalfields' case is prejudiced by not having this report
because he is not dealing with it.
2788. CHAIRMAN: No, I dare say it is
not. Mr Carpenter has been making representations about this alternative
southern route for some time and I think we need to listen to
him and we need to deal with it. One of the reasons, Mr Carpenter,
why we are not allowed to deal with alternative routes, at any
rate major alternatives, is because, as is in your case, the possibility
of petitioning is against the route that is, in fact, in the deposited
plans, which is what you have done. If there was an alternative
route which was open to us all the people whose properties might
be affected by that alternative route would also have to have
the opportunity of petitioning. You must see that.
2789. MR CARPENTER: Yes, I do.
2790. CHAIRMAN: That is the alternative
provisions arrangements which happened in the House of Commons
very considerably and it led to a further petitioning period and,
indeed, further petitions. If you want to promote an alternative
route it would have to be done by the Promoters and they would
have then to open that route to petitions from anybody who might
be affected by it. That is the situation. As they have not presented
it and as there has been no opportunity to petition against it,
there is nothing we can do about it. It may be that you are not
the person who is going to present this and if it is somebody
else they may or may not have heard what I have had to say. I
am terribly sorry, the fact of the matter is these are the rules.
2791. MR CARPENTER: I understand that.
On the two points that Mr Elvin made, as I explained we are all
working together so there is no repetition, hence whether it comes
to my organisation but someone else presents it, that is more
of a technical thing. The other part is what is being withheld,
it is true it is not what we had on screen a moment ago, the main
option alternatives from 2001, but they are Crossrail's more recent
reports on the southern route. For Petitioners of Spitalfields,
and the mitigation of problems in Spitalfields, one of the solutions
is to modify the route so we want to look at Crossrail's reasoning
for the benchmark scheme and want to look at their previous incarnation's
report to see how that has developed. I did not consider that
to be an unreasonable request.
2792. CHAIRMAN: It may not be an unreasonable
request, but the fact of the matter is the Promoters have not
asked Parliament to consider an alternative southern route; they
have asked Parliament to consider the one that is on the deposited
plans, which you have seen, and that is the agenda for this Select
Committee and not anything else.
Promoter's opening remarks on Spitalfields
2793. MR CARPENTER: I understand. I do
not want to say too much more but our concerns have always been
about information from Crossrail and their EIA compliance and
looking at that kind of information. We consider that the EIA
is not going to be compliant because, in layman's terms, they
have not looked at alternatives enough and shown that in the Environmental
Statement, so we believe the Environmental Statement will be affected.
2794. CHAIRMAN: That is another point.
2795. MR CARPENTER: Exactly. My point
is it is all related because we have barrister's opinion that
agrees with that and we are simply trying to find out more information
from Crossrail about these alternative southern alignments and
the incarnation's previous report. So it all ties together and
makes sense we would like these things before we come and appear
before you.
2796. CHAIRMAN: Except from the point
of view of the Select Committee, because we are not empowered
to deal with something that is not being promoted. If Crossrail
and the rest of the Promoters are not going to promote a southerly
route then there is nothing for us to consider. You go and discuss
this with your colleagues because it is very obvious that you
have had huge discussions about all these things, and very helpfully
so too, but frankly that is the situation we are all in. You go
ahead and try and find out anything you want, but we cannot put
off the consideration of the Spitalfields' amendments until such
time as the Information Commissioner has decided your appeal because
even if he decides in your favour, it is not within our powers
to do anything about it.
2797. MR CARPENTER: Okay, thank you very
much.
2798. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much indeed.
Now, Mr Elvin, you are going to make the initial statement about
this group of Petitions.
2799. MR ELVIN: Indeed. My Lords, my
Lady, I hope the Committee does not mind, this is a little longer
than normal because we are presenting, as it were, an introduction
to all of the Petitions for this week. I was proposing just to
go through each of the issues in outline explaining what the issues
are and what our position is on them, if that is convenient to
the Committee.
3 Crossrail Ref: P24, Tunnel Alignment-Liverpool Street
Station-Alternative Alignments A, B and C and existing alignment,
Mott MacDonald (SCN-20080310-001) Back
4
Crossrail Ref: P23, Correspondence from DfT to Woodseer and Hanbury
Residents Association, List of Documents Provided on Alternative
Alignments, 5 July 2007 (TOWHLB-XR5B-001 and -002) Back
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