Examination of Witnesses (Questions 9700
- 9719)
9700. MR ELVIN: If Mr George wants to
play games I will recall Mr Berryman and ask him what his view
is. The reality is we are not playing with the transcript, as
Mr George wishes to do, it is a question of what Mr Berryman thinks
and I will recall Mr Berryman if we are going to get into that
territory.
9701. MR GEORGE: Your Lordships will
have their own recollection. What is quite plain from that is
if we take simply the first two of those examples, I think the
first part of the answer also, regardless of that correction to
Lord Snape's question in the corrected version, shows that there
is a possibility that what I am asserting might happen could happen.
We will simply ask your Lordships to bear that in mind.
9702. Thirdly, Mr Elvin expressed great confidence
that the current figure of 71 per cent PPM will be subject to
considerable improvement, that was his paragraph 34. For that
he relies on what Network Rail's Mr Burns told the ORR, but we
need to look very carefully at what Mr Burns said and I would
ask there be put on the screen, please, paragraph 25 from Mr Elvin's
submission of yesterday.[58]
Your Lordships who were here yesterday will recall this passage.
Mr Burns told the regulator, "I think what we have got is
a very good base position. It is not catastrophic, that is the
71. Richard described what happened if you just moved two of those
variables to reasonable positions of expectation, one of them
being where maintenance might be 40 per cent improvement on currently.
I know as well as you that frankly we had a very poor position
in 2006. It does not seem unreasonable given the things that we
are going to do to expect that to improve by 40 per cent if you
move rolling stock to 60, 000 miles per casualty. If those two
variables moved up in the model, they give you a figure very,
very close to 90 per cent. That is very encouraging", and
he thought that reasonable.
9703. Can I ask your Lordships to look to the
reasoning. The hypothesis being put forward is that delays to
other rail traffic being caused by maintenance can be reduced
by 40 per cent. Now that is a huge saving to expect to achieve
by 2017 to cater for a circumstance in which there is going to
be more traffic on the railway, not least the growing freight
of which your Lordships heard yesterday and where the Crossrail
service is itself going to involve a more intense use of the railway
lines. Your Lordships may wonder whether it is prudent to plan
on a basis that there is going to be a reduction by 40 per cent
of the time spent on maintenance. One may feel that the public
would rather be expecting more maintenance rather than less maintenance.
9704. So far as the other matter which is mentioned,
which is move rolling stock to 60,000 miles per casualty, casualty
is not a personal injury, it is an incident which causes a perturbation
and delays on the railway. It may be possible to achieve a higher
miles per such casualty incident, it may not be, no-one knows,
but what I simply draw to your Lordships attention is that there
are two pretty heroic assumptions here in the planning. If neither
of those are achieved or neither to the full amount, then you
are well short of the 90 PPM. Mr Smith cannot say for certain
that those will not be achieved but, as one of your Lordships
remarked last Tuesday, one always has to look at worst cases and
just consider what happens if as soon as your Lordships do that
you will see straightaway there is scope for those two assumptions
not being achieved in quite the way that is presently hoped for.
Those are matters which are going to be completely beyond Crossrail's
own control just as they are completely beyond EWS's or the freight's
own control. We simply do not know what the situation will be.
If that happens, if one cannot make those savings, if one cannot
make the system work at the 92 PPM, then someone is going to be
squeezed. Our fear is that it is going to be rail freight which
will be squeezed and that it makes it the more important to ensure
that the infrastructure works are in at the earliest opportunity.
9705. Our fourth concern is Mr Elvin's claim
in paragraph 28 of his submission that the 92 per cent emanated
from CLRL as if perhaps a different, even lower figure might possibly
be acceptable, but I am told, and my witnesses will be able to
confirm, that in July 2007 the Government's high-level output
specification set a target PPM of 92.6 per cent PPM to be achieved
generally by 2014, and your Lordships saw this morning when Network
Rail were giving evidence that they are getting near the 90 now,
so this is not, in other words, an exceptionally high standard
to be seeking.[59]
It is an appropriate standard to be seeking, but it shows how
woeful the modelling is at the present time in showing how one
is ever going to achieve that aim.
9706. My fifth point is that at paragraph 47(1)
yesterday and throughout the cross-examination yesterday of Mr
Garratt by Mr Taylor, there was the suggestion that, since the
infrastructure works in the Bill have not yet been designed in
detail, there was nothing to which Crossrail could be committed
at this stage. As I made plain, I hope, on Day 21 at paragraph
8233, each of the works in the Bill has its own description, but
leaves to the Promoter scope for flexibility within the limits
of deviation of that particular work.[60]
The same goes for the precise depth of the top of the tunnel which,
as you will recall from Mr Berryman on Day 21, there is some scope
for adjusting the line of the tunnel in order to pass beneath
one particular sewer which, it was previously thought, would be
affected. That the detailed design is not a problem with the undertaking
is apparent from the case of the Acton dive-under. If the Committee,
in their copy of the Bill, would look at Schedule 1, Works 3/17
and 3/17A, you will see that the description of that work for
the Acton dive-under falls short of a detailed engineering design.[61]
All the Bill does, and it is page 59 of the Bill, is to set out
an explanation in words with certain distances of the particular
work. The Bill sets parameters in terms of lines and situations
shown on the deposited plans, but to understand that, could I
take your Lordships to clause 1 of the Bill, and it is clause
1(2)(a) and (b) which your Lordships may not have had to look
at previously, which says that "the scheduled works shall
be constructed"—
9707. CHAIRMAN: We have.
9708. MR GEORGE:—"in the lines
or situations shown on the deposited plans", so the works
are, as it were, given their own situation, they are given their
own outward parameters and limits of deviation, but within them
there is flexibility.[62]
In the case of the Acton dive-under, the Promoters found no difficulty
in the other place in giving an undertaking. If I could ask your
Lordships to go to EWS29 and we put that up on the screen, we
see there that they were adding to the register the second item,
a commitment to construct the dive-under at Acton Yard, as referenced
in paragraph 15098 of the transcript, and that did not include
a detailed design.[63]
If the Promoters were able to commit to the Acton Yard dive-under,
similarly they are perfectly able to commit to the other five
works on the Great Western Line which we have specified in EWS24.
The commitment can be in terms of the work number or, in the case
of the vital new centre track at Southall which does not have
a work number because it will be built under existing powers,
I presume, by reference to the paragraph in the Environmental
Statement which expressly states that it will be built. Indeed,
the giving of the Acton dive-under undertaking really proves that
the difficulties and policy considerations which the Promoters
are now relying on are simply unreal.
9709. Perhaps I can say this, finally, to your
Lordships: that, in the case of the works in this Bill, Parliament
stands in the shoes of the local planning authority and is being
asked to grant planning permission and CPO powers. That is what
clause 10(1) of the Bill expressly provides.[64]
It says that you are granting planning permission for the works
in the Bill and that includes the five additional works for which
we are asking for a commitment that they be built. If I may give
a very simple example, which I gave to the Select Committee in
the other place, your Lordships may like to consider the position
of a superstore developer, or the developer of a proposed industrial
estate, where the planning application either includes provision
for access improvements, say, a new roundabout on the main highway
to ensure that traffic to and from the development can be safely
accommodated and without causing delays to other traffic, or else
during post-application discussions it becomes apparent that the
new roundabout is needed if the superstore or the industrial estate
is to function satisfactorily. It is inconceivable that the local
planning authority would permit the superstore or industrial estate
simply on the assurance of the developer that in due course he
would build a roundabout or something comparable at an appropriate
time. Rather, they would impose a condition on the planning application—it
would not require a legal agreement—but a condition on the
planning application that the superstore or industrial estate
was not to open for trading unless, or until, the new roundabout
had been built, and that is all that we are seeking. Of course,
Parliament is much grander, much more responsible than local planning
authorities and that is why schemes like Crossrail come to Parliament
rather than to a lower tier of the planning system, but the fundamental
principle remains the same, and all we are seeking is that you
require the construction of the most important of these works,
which everyone seems to agree are necessary, and require that
they should be built so as to avoid conflict between passenger
and freight movements. They are necessary if Crossrail is to operate
safely and at the sort of PPM measure which is presently contemplated.
We all here have to assume that the construction of Crossrail
is in the public interest; the principle of the Bill is unchallengeable.
It follows that everything possible ought to be done to ensure
that Crossrail will be up and running by 2017 with the minimum
delays and with the minimum of changed specifications on the way.
This morning, when Network Rail were appearing, you had an interesting
example of some of the pressures that there are going to be over
the next few years to make changes and some of the pressures may
be to eliminate costs or to delay the incurring of costs. What
we would urge upon your Lordships though is that the incorporation
of these additional five works, essential works in the way we
have suggested, is thoroughly desirable and could only work to
achieve the opening of Crossrail at that 2017 opening date.
9710. CHAIRMAN: You are picking up the
planning regime in Schedule 7. I think one of the interesting
omissions, unless I have misread this, is that there is no time
limit which would be the normal accompaniment to a planning permission,
when it should start.
9711. MR GEORGE: There nearly always
is—
9712. CHAIRMAN: Well, I just cannot find
it.
9713. MR GEORGE:—a five- or a ten-year
period. My Lord, it is clause 11(1), "a condition of the
planning permission deemed ... to be granted ... that the development
must be begun not later than the end of ten years", so in
an ordinary planning permission it is five years. It always used
to be five and it has now come down to three. Crossrail is a special
case and, therefore, they are given ten years. We do not quibble
with that ten years, but that is an example here, as I say, where
you have got a specially tailored regime which you can make, and
indeed we say, with all respect, the Committee ought to require
the sort of matters which we are seeking. As I say, I apologise
for the lengthy opening and I can assure your Lordships that it
will ensure that my closing will be considerably shorter. Perhaps
I could then proceed to call Mr Smith.
9714. LORD BROOKE OF ALVERTHORPE: My
Lord Chairman, Mr George has raised three separate issues with
us. On the first one on compensation, presumably we are not taking
evidence on that.
9715. MR GEORGE: On the very first issue,
which was 41(3), Mr Oatway will have to read two sentences on
it. So far as the more complicated matter of compensation is concerned,
Mr Oatway, who is the expert on that, will deal with that in his
evidence and Mr Smith is simply giving evidence in relation to
the third matter, which is the infrastructure.
9716. LORD BROOKE OF ALVERTHORPE: On
that then, when we get to it, could you refresh my memory as to
whether that issue was raised in the other place and what the
response was?
9717. MR GEORGE: I can say straightaway
that it was raised in the other place. It went unmentioned, though
I stand to be corrected, but, as far as I recall, it went entirely
unmentioned in the Committee's Report. No, it is not clause 41.
The compensation issue was raised in the other place and the issue
of clause 41 was not raised, but we raised a general point about
the railway clauses, but, frankly, one could not get anywhere
on that because no one knew what was going to happen and those
matters, certainly as far as the Committee were concerned, were
left over to see what happened on the access options.
9718. CHAIRMAN: Did you raise the list
of works?
9719. MR GEORGE: We were rather bolder;
we asked for the entire works which were in Schedule 1, the entire
railway freight works which were in Schedule 1, and again we got
a concession from the Promoters in respect of the Acton dive-under
and, as far as I remember, and again I stand to be corrected,
I do not think that matter was specifically addressed in the Report,
but, if it was, Mr Elvin will draw your Lordships' attention to
it, but again at that stage the modelling was at a very, very,
very preliminary stage. We were nowhere near knowing 71 PPM or
92 PPM or anything like that, so I think the Committee might have
regarded it simply as premature to reach any conclusions on that
sort of matter at that stage.
MR GRAHAM
SMITH, Sworn Examined by MR
GEORGE
58 Crossrail Ref: P65, Promoter's Opening on Railway
Issues, Para 25 (SCN-20080430-058) Back
59
Crossrail Ref: P65, Promoter's Opening on Railway Issues, Para
28 (SCN-20080430-059) Back
60
Para 8233, Uncorrected Transcript, 22 April 2008 [Mr George QC] Back
61
Crossrail Bill, Session 2007-08, HL Bill 14, Schedule 1- Scheduled
works (SCN-20080430-061) Back
62
Crossrail Bill, Session 2007-08, HL Bill 14, Clause 1 (SCN-20080430-062) Back
63
Committee Ref: A57, Correspondence from Bircham Dyson Bell to
Department for Transport, Crossrail-Register of Undertakings,
21 January 2008 (LINEWD-103_05A-018) Back
64
Crossrail Bill, Session 2007-08, HL Bill 14, Clause 10 (SCN-20080430-063
to -064) Back
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