Examination of Witnesses (Questions 11920
- 11939)
11920. CHAIRMAN: I am sure you have.
11921. MS KHELA: Mr Elvin has had ample
time to investigate—
11922. MR ELVIN: If Ms Khela had read
the transcripts of the Spitalfields week she will have seen that
in relation to liaison we were content to have the same structure
as the King's Cross Liaison Panel.
11923. MS KHELA: But I—
11924. MR ELVIN: Please let me finish.
11925. MS KHELA: I am sorry.
11926. MR ELVIN: As you know, we have
given an undertaking to the House of Commons to act as a facilitator
as far as we can and as far as the community will allow us to
set up a Liaison Panel. We are not going to run it. Your Lordships
are familiar with what happened in the two weeks before Easter.
We have already said we are content, if that is what the community
wants, to have the King's Cross tripartite model. I think I put
before the Committee, and I think my Lord, Lord Snape recalls
this, the material from Camden, the correspondence, so Ms Khela
is pushing at an open door if she wants that because I have already
said we do not dispute that is an appropriate model if that is
what the community wants.
11927. CHAIRMAN: I am sure we will be
perfectly happy as a Select Committee if that happened as well.
11928. MS KHELA: On that basis, Crossrail
will undertake then to direct the nominated contractor to submit
all section 61 and Schedule 7 applications with supporting documents
to the Spitalfields and Whitechapel Community Liaison Panel six
weeks prior to the submission to the London—
11929. CHAIRMAN: Now you are quoting
from something else, are you?
11930. MS KHELA: No, this is the undertaking
we want on the basis of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link St Pancras
Station Camden Council Report in December 2006 which outlines
that consultees are affected groups and not the kind of arbitrary
definition of—
11931. CHAIRMAN: Mr Elvin, is that part
of the undertaking or not?
11932. MR ELVIN: No.
11933. MS KHELA: No. We would like that.
11934. LORD SNAPE: Lord Chairman, I hesitate
to interrupt but there are some points I would like to raise with
you. First of all, this matter was discussed in some detail and
I cross-examined Mr Elvin personally about the King's Cross forum
and indeed received some undertakings from him that procedures
which would be followed as far as Spitalfields was concerned would
be identical to those which were followed at the time of the King's
Cross forum.
11935. MS KHELA: May I read—
11936. LORD SNAPE: I have not finished
yet. The second point I wish to raise is a time one. You did say
to this witness an hour and a half ago that this Committee was
time-limited to 7.30 and I do think it is important we hear from
the Promoters at some stage before 7.30. The third point is that
I do think it is time that you actually enforced your rulings
rather than giving advice to this particular petitioner.
11937. CHAIRMAN: You see, Ms Khela, I
am trying to give you such latitude as I possibly can. The fact
of the matter is, it is extremely difficult to follow what you
are saying, because we do not seem to have the documents or we
did not have the documents before. If you want undertakings, the
normal method of getting undertakings is to start negotiations
with the Promoters and see if you can reach agreement, and I can
tell you that lots and lots of other petitioners have done that
very successfully.
11938. MS KHELA: They do not tend to
be—
11939. CHAIRMAN: There is a huge register
of them. You have not done it, have you?
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