Examination of Witnesses (Questions 7400
- 7419)
7400. CHAIRMAN: I think we have had enough
difficulty about deciding what is the principle of the Bill in
this case!
7401. MS LIEVEN: Yes, but what is absolutely
clear in a hybrid bill process is that people cannot come before
the Committee and say: "Don't build Crossrail".
7402. CHAIRMAN: But they can say: "Don't
build it here", in the first House.
7403. MS LIEVEN: Yes, but a distinction
between that situation and a TWA is that it is open to the Secretary
of State on a TWA, even under section 9, to reject the TWA, and
it is open to the Inspector to recommend that the Secretary of
State reject the TWA, so it is quite difficult to see quite what
section 9 does but it clearly does give more weight and makes
it more difficult for the Inspector to recommend refusal, and
it therefore stacks the balance against anybody who would want
to argue that. So if, for example, you are a landowner who has
a very high aspiration for development which will be stopped by
the proposal, then it is going to be much more difficult for you
to put your case. I put it like that.
7404. LORD YOUNG OF NORWOOD GREEN: You
argued earlier on in your first submission on this that there
was a real significance in that procedure where it refers to proposals
of national significance. I was then a bit swayed by Mr Cameron's
view that it was just procedural, but now I look and I realise,
in fact, that when you go to page 10 you are operating under a
scheme of national significance.[60]61
7405. MS LIEVEN: Absolutely, my Lord.
It is clearly intended that proposals which came under section
9 had been considered by the Secretary of State to be of national
significance. That is section 9(1). What Mr Cameron is saying
to you is: "Well, don't worry too much because we accept
this is not national significance, but it is deemed to be of national
significance and that is all we are asking".
7406. Well, I accept that as a legality but,
in my submission, this Committee should not be accepting something
to be deemed of national significance if they are clearly of the
view that it is not of national significance. I am not saying
that legally you cannot do it, I suspect you could do it, but,
in my submission, you have to be satisfied on the evidence that
it is an appropriate thing to do, and there is no doubt that the
powers in section 9 were brought in for that very special case.
7407. Mr Taylor, who knows more about this than
me, says that it was brought in after the Terminal 5 inquiry and
one can clearly see in cases such as that there might be an argument
about national significance, but in my submission an extension
from Abbey Wood to Ebbsfleet plainly does not meet that test,
and it is the test that this Committee should be applying.
7408. LORD YOUNG OF NORWOOD GREEN: May
I just ask one more supplementary? If you did not go down the
section 9 route, is section 6 an alternative route? I am just
not clear.
7409. MS LIEVEN: I think section 6, as
I understand it, is the normal TWA route.[61]62
I ought to know this because I have promoted many TWAs, but that
is how you make your normal TWA.
7410. LORD YOUNG OF NORWOOD GREEN: Where
something is not of national significance?
7411. MS LIEVEN: Where something is not
of national significance, or it might be but nobody might have
bothered to go down a section 9 route. So if you go to section
9 for a second, please, you can see what it says is: "This
section applies where an application made under section 6 above
relates (wholly or in part) to proposals which in the opinion
of the Secretary of State are of national significance".
So if you want to make your section 6 ordinary application but
you want to give it an extra push because you say it is of national
significance, then you seek to put it under section 9.
7412. LORD YOUNG OF NORWOOD GREEN: Thank
you.
7413. CHAIRMAN: Mr Cameron, I think you
must be allowed a comment on all of that.
7414. MR CAMERON: I am very grateful.
7415. My Lord, it is curious that the Secretary
of State promotes the Crossrail project as a whole as a hybrid
bill seeking to get the principle established and then to debate
the details, and then objects to a similar approach—I am
not saying it is the same approach but a similar approach—being
adopted for an extension which the Secretary of State acknowledges
has public benefit and which the Secretary of State acknowledges
has such sufficient public benefit to merit safeguarding. That
is the first comment I make in response to that.
7416. On the details, my Lord, the effect of
section 9 and the amendments we are seeking, described before
by Lady Fookes as deeming to be of national significance, I have
already dealt with that point, but subsection (5) on page 11 is
the effect of it: "An order made on the application shall
not include any provision that is inconsistent with a proposal
approved by a resolution in accordance with this section",
so what would happen would be a resolution was put before both
Houses of Parliament which could set out, for example, the starting
and finishing points, and, my Lord, in the Stratford case that
is exactly what happened, specific provisions were referred to
in the resolution, and, in fact, I have the resolution here: "The
construction, maintenance and operation in the London Borough
of Hackney and Newham of a station at Stratford for international
domestic services and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link with vehicular
parking and other facilities in connection therewith, railways
comprising", and then the railways are specified, and there
was a debate in the House of Commons—I do not have the record
for the House of Lords—in which one of the members of the
Committee, I think Lord Snape, participated in his former role,
and I take that as an example.[62]63
7417. So there is an opportunity to debate the
terms of the resolution and the terms of the resolution are set,
so it could say "from Abbey Wood to Gravesend" or Hoo
or wherever, that would be set, and then at the Transport and
Works Act stage inquiry it is open to the Secretary of State to
reject the Order but it is not open to the Secretary of State
to include any provision which would be inconsistent with the
resolution. So the purpose of this amendment would be to assist
the Secretary of State in achieving something which she says is
desirable. Although Ms Lieven, on behalf of the Secretary of State,
speaks about the difficulties for landowners, landowners would
be protected, first, by the resolution and, secondly, by the procedure
itself.
7418. CHAIRMAN: Conversely, they could
not object to the principle.
7419. MR CAMERON: They could not object
to any proposal approved by a resolution.
The Petition of Mr Roy Carrier
60 61 Committee Ref: A35, Options for Select Committee
(8) (BEXYLB-44_05A-010) Back
61
62 Committee Ref: A35, Options for Select Committee (6) (BEXYLB-44_05A-008) Back
62
63 Committee Ref: A35, Options for Select Committee (8) (BEXYLB-44_05A-010) Back
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