Examination of Witnesses (Questions 5900
- 5919)
5900. MR MOULD: If I may say so, I am
very grateful to hear that.
5901. CHAIRMAN: It is not a matter for
us at all. It therefore goes back to this situation: that the
Promoters are putting forward the project on the basis that there
will be mitigation of effects by way of a Deed of Settlement,
in such terms as you think fit to offer. I quite appreciate that
there may be Petitioners who did not know that there was going
to be a chance to challenge this, but for the moment let us take
it on the basis of the Deed of Settlement that you have already
published.
5902. If Petitioners come along, and Ms Jones
has, and say: "That is not good enough. I want changes in
it", then it is not going to be done in front of this Committee,
it is going to be done between you as a matter of negotiation.
I cannot believe there is any other solution to it than that.
At the end of this, you will come back and say to what extent,
if any, you are prepared to concede these points.
5903. MR MOULD: That is certainly right,
yes.
5904. CHAIRMAN: It is not inconceivable
that at that point we might allow Ms Jones to come back and make
submissions about what you have not conceded, although I am very
unwilling to extend the timetable because we are beginning to
get very tight up against the limits that I expected in terms
of timetable, but still, let us not be unreasonable about this.
I do not think we can treat this, as it were, as an additional
provision which enables everybody to re-petition all over again.
I think that would be absolutely hopeless.
5905. MR MOULD: My Lord, I would respectfully,
if I may just say, entirely associate myself with that thought.
There is another point which reinforces it: it is not just the
fact that the Deed in the form you will find attached to the information
paper has been in the public domain throughout the petitioning
period (and, as you have seen, those who are interested in securing
changes to it, i.e. the Spitalfields Petitioners, have responded
to it—Ms Jones is here) but, also, as I was at pains to
point out last week, the substance of the procedure which can
be secured by Petitioners through contract by entering into the
Deed with the nominated undertaker is the substance of the settlement
policy which is set out in information paper D12. In other words,
the Deed does not change for better or worse the commitments that
we have set out and the process that we have set out in the settlement
policy itself; the Deed reflects that, it provides for phased
assessment. It provides for monitoring; it provides for schedules
of defects to be prepared on the basis of surveys; it provides
for the remediation and prevention of damage due to ground movement
caused by Crossrail and it sets out specific arrangements for
listed buildings. Each of the substantive components of our settlement
policy is reflected in the Deed, and so it is not just a case
of people having the opportunity to say what they want to say
about the terms of the Deed, they plainly have had the opportunity
to say what they want to say, through Petitions, about the terms
of our settlement policy itself. So that reinforces, if I may
say so, your Lordships' point that this is not a matter which
ought properly to lead to any further opportunities to bring formal
Petitions before the House. It is something that has already been
fairly and squarely before the public at the time when they had
the opportunity to petition, and those that are concerned about
it have done so.
5906. CHAIRMAN: Subject to this, Mr Mould:
some of this material—not all of it—was put forward
at the end of 2006 and there was no comment from the Promoters.
Therefore, this Petitioner has had no answer.
5907. MR MOULD: This Petitioner—I
accept that.
5908. CHAIRMAN: Therefore, I think it
would be quite wrong for this Committee not to give an opportunity
for this Petitioner to have a negotiation with you to see whether
any progress can be made on the various points that she wishes
to put forward. If you look at it in this way, the changes that
will be made would be to the advantage, I would have thought,
to all Petitioners, or all landowners, subject to the railway
going underneath their properties. Therefore, nobody is going
to be any the worse off.
5909. MR MOULD: Certainly that would
be her desire and one would expect that any such changes would
have that effect, yes.
5910. CHAIRMAN: I do not think that we
can come to any conclusion about this, in these particular factual
circumstances, without giving Ms Jones an opportunity to discuss
with you the points where she wants changes made.
5911. MR MOULD: I accept that. What I
would propose is that we should—
5912. CHAIRMAN: Not in front of us.
5913. MR MOULD: No. As I say, the approach
I would suggest, picking up on that, is if you are prepared to
hear debate now about the points of principle we can have that
debate.
5914. CHAIRMAN: Yes.
5915. MR MOULD: Then we will review her
documents—the changes that she has set out in writing and
had handed to you today—and we will aim to respond to her
on that, if we can, by the end of this week—so by close
of play on Thursday. Then, I have just been told that we will
seek to provide her with a further slot in the eighth week of
your Committee sittings, just so that if she does want to bring
any points arising back to the Committee then she has the opportunity
to do so, which I think sits neatly with your Lordship's proposal.
I would very much hope that we will not have to and that she may
feel, whether we have agreed with her or not, that she will have
had an appropriate response, but that would give her an opportunity
to ventilate any consequent thoughts if she wished to do so.
5916. CHAIRMAN: I think that it would
be a very good thing if we heard you discuss the matters of principle,
but not the text. We could do the former this afternoon, and we
will never do the text because that is going to be a matter that
is either agreed or not. Now, Ms Jones, how does that all seem
to you?
5917. MS JONES: I am very grateful to
the Promoters, and that is absolutely acceptable to me.
5918. CHAIRMAN: Are you happy to go ahead
on that basis?
5919. MS JONES: I certainly am and indeed
I am quite pleased to go ahead on that basis. I did not really
want to put you through a couple of hours of discussing the minutiae
of the drafting.
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