Examination of Witnesses (Questions 9420
- 9439)
9420. I appreciate that.
(Mr Gisby) Are my project team cheering because they won
the Crossrail contract in addition to everything else they have
got to do? Not exactly, but they will do it because it is a good
thing to do. Are my operations team absolutely cheering because
they are going to have to run 24 trains an hour on top of everything
else they have to do? Not exactly, but they will do it because,
again, they want to run a good railway. So I am not "upping
the ante" or "bidding" or trying to make a profit
or anything else out of this; I just think it is the right thing
to do.
9421. Mr Gisby, let me make this clear: your
position is perfectly well understood. You will also understand
that we have to reach an accommodation with Network Rail over
these issues, and your position is understood. You will also understand
that we have to integrate this not only with the national network
but with the transport network within London.
(Mr Gisby) If I may, in my understanding, the operating issues
linking this with the transport network for the rest of London
are minimal compared with what you are asking me to do. I have
to blend in trains at either end, compared with everything else
I do. There are a number of sub-surface stations here. I do not
want to run the sub-surface stations. The thing that does the
blending between the stations underground and the rest of the
network are the people, not the trains, because they move from
one system to another.
9422. However, it explains—and I am not
suggesting it leads to a particular answer—why TfL, given
its interest in its own infrastructure and its investment in Crossrail,
is adopting a particular position on what the outcome should be.
As I have already made clear on several occasions, it is not something
which the Secretary of State has adopted or agreed with at this
stage, but it does explain their position.
(Mr Gisby) I actually find it quite counter-intuitive, if
I may. If you want to put this much money into a tunnel and you,
at some point, having built it, want to refinance it, then I would
have thought the main thing you want to know is that it is going
to work, and the most likely way of making it work is to go for
the simplest method of integrating it into the rest of the network.
If you try and take it out of the way the rest of the railway
operates at the moment, with all its imperfections and all the
things it has learnt to do over the last few years, I think you
might end up with something (and this is well outside my area
of expertise in terms of financing) that is rather less effective
than what could happen here.
9423. That is a point, no doubt, you will be
making to us when we have to reach a final decision on this issue.
(Mr Gisby) It is not for me to comment on the funding of
this, I just want to try and—
9424. Mr Gisby, let me try this again. TfL is
running this position because of its concerns with its funding.
I am not saying to you that the Secretary of State is saying that
the capital funding is part of this exercise; all I am saying
is it explains where TfL is coming from. Mr Gisby, you seem to
think I am putting a more difficult question to you than I am.
It is not an unfriendly question, Mr Gisby. These are points you
will, no doubt, be making very strongly when you are asked for
your view as to what the Secretary of State should do, are they
not?
(Mr Gisby) I am sure they are, yes.
9425. Can I just put up what TfL is saying on
page 2 of its document—again, just to understand what the
Secretary of State is having to deal with in terms of resolving
the issue.[33]
We can see TfL's concerns in terms of charging, and you may well
say they are unfounded, but that is your position. In paragraph
9 and paragraph 12 it comes out most clearly, I think, does it
not? Paragraph 9: "Charging regime: The most notable feature
of a regulated access option is that it contains no term as to
price." You would say the answer to that is regulation 12.
Is that right?
(Mr Gisby) Yes.
9426. Because under the access regulations,
the infrastructure manager has a duty to act in a fair and non-discriminatory
fashion, but it must conclude a contract with someone who wishes
to run a train on the network subject to any overview by the ORR,
through the access arrangement regime.
(Mr Gisby) Yes, but if I may come back to points made earlier,
what we are concerned about is actually quite narrow; it is not
about charging and funding and financing. That is an issue for
TfL in promoting the scheme. I am interested in the safe operation
of what is built and how it affects the rest of the railway I
run. I was in that position last summer and my colleagues negotiated
with the Promoters of this railway, one of which is TfL, exactly
on that basis. I went in front of the ORR, which I do quite often,
exactly on that basis, and I now find that that basis probably
was not the premise on which I undertook—
9427. There may have been a misunderstanding,
Mr Gisby. I really do not want to rake over the coals on that.
Schedule 5 of the agreement that has not been concluded does refer
to the need for further agreements, does it not?
(Mr Gisby) Indeed.
9428. So we cannot say that that would have
represented the final stage; there would have had to be further
agreements. I do not want to rake over the coals on this; I am
just trying to explore with you what your position is with regard
to where TfL is coming from. I just want the Committee to understand
what each party's respective position is. The Secretary of State,
as I say, has yet to make a final decision, and it would be wrong
for me to express any particular side or view, therefore. On the
issue of charging, the access arrangements are determined under
the 1995 regulations and the 1993 Act, are they not?
(Mr Gisby) Yes.
9429. The 1995 regulations, and we are looking
at regulation 16, which is the contract for access which, effectively,
leads to the allocation of capacity—that is with the infrastructure
manager.
(Mr Gisby) Yes.
9430. So if you are the infrastructure manager
for the central section then access rights are the subject of
agreements with you as infrastructure manager, as they are on
the main network.
(Mr Gisby) I do think it is quite important to make a distinction
between being infrastructure manager for the safe operation of
the railway and being the facility owner which can concern itself
with matters of granting those contracts and the charging for
them.
9431. Mr Gisby, you really do not see where
I am coming from. I am not trying to score any points with you;
I am just trying to get the Committee to understand where TfL
is coming from. If you are the infrastructure manager for the
access regulations, it is your job to allocate capacity and enter
agreements for parcelling up the use of the central section.
(Mr Gisby) That would be the case, yes.
9432. That then allows you to levy the charges
which Mr Purchas has referred to, and, quite rightly, they are
subject to approval by the ORR under regulation 12.
(Mr Gisby) Mmm.
9433. Where we see TfL coming from—and
I am not saying they are right or wrong—is to say they are
concerned about the allocation of capacity going out of their
control, given that they are paying for a large slice of it, putting
it simply.
(Mr Gisby) That may be the case; I could not comment.
9434. It is what paragraph 12 says. It says
that TfL would be dependent on ORR's determinations to provide
certainty to investors. I am not saying that is right, I am just
saying that is what TfL is arguing before us.
(Mr Gisby) That is what this paper appears to say, yes.
9435. We can see that that is tied in with their
concerns about the regulations. Your position, I am sure, is this:
if you are the infrastructure manager under the ROGS (and we are
faced with a slightly different definition for infrastructure
manager under both but let us not go there because I think that
will give us all a headache, but they are slightly different definitions),
under the ROGS where TfL have agreed you should be infrastructure
manager (and this is answering my Lord's question), the responsibility
for safety is the infrastructure manager's.
(Mr Gisby) Absolutely.
9436. You would say, no doubt, in these negotiations,
in due course, it is illogical for you to be the infrastructure
manager under the ROGS, because you have direct responsibility
for safety, and not to have an appropriate level of control under
the regulations.
(Mr Gisby) Yes, I would say that.
9437. That would be your position in this negotiation.
(Mr Gisby) Yes.
9438. Regulation 3 of the ROGS (if I can just
put that up)—the term "infrastructure manager"
is not referred to here. Clearly, it ties into the definition
of infrastructure manager at the beginning of these regulations.
It says that no person who is responsible for developing and maintaining
infrastructure (and that must mean an infrastructure manager)
shall manage and use it or permit it to be used unless he has
established and is maintaining a safety management system.[34]
That is the duty, is it not?
(Mr Gisby) That is the duty, yes.
9439. We can see, just so the Committee is aware,
what the ROGS mean by "a safety management system" in
regulation 5(7).[35]
They are there set out, and I have highlighted some of the main
features. It means control of all categories of risk, in terms
of design, construction and the like, the effects of operation
of transport undertakings, operating in accordance with the TFCI's
national safety rules and all necessary emergency procedures.
So it covers the range of safety issues.
(Mr Gisby) Yes.
33 Committee Ref: A54, TfL-Regulation of the Crossrail
Central Tunnel Section (LINEWD-110-05-002) Back
34
Crossrail Ref: P67, Use of infrastructure on the mainline railway,
The Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations
2006 (SI 2006/599) (SCN-20080430-037) Back
35
Crossrail Ref: P67, Safety management system for the mainline
railway, The Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety)
Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/599) (SCN-20080430-038) Back
|
