Examination of Witnesses (Questions 11980
- 11999)
11980. So, my Lord, the whole assumption which
is being made, that the Commons made decisions at Second and Third
Readings ignorant of these issues, simply does not hold water.
These matters were fully aired before Second Reading, they were
fully aired during the Commons Select Committee hearing and the
Commons at Third Reading was reminded of the arguments because
the majority of this Command Paper which was presented at Third
Reading is the argument between the Promoters and Mr Carpenter's
Association. The vast bulk of those documents relate to this particular
petitioner. So to suggest that these matters were determined by
the Commons in ignorance of facts or law, just does not hold water,
as I said.
11981. So, my Lord, there are a whole series
of misassumptions therefore in the Petitioner's submissions. We
therefore say we have dealt with the Option B issue and your Lordships
have made a ruling. This petition raises nothing new to those
raised by Mr Horton. The objective approach was simply his way
of characterising the matter. It was no more and no less than
EIA and alternative alignments, and as for consultation, we continue
to abide by, as far as we can within our power, the undertaking
which we gave to the House of Commons following the airing at
length of all of these complaints.
11982. Finally, as a matter of fact, it is not
correct that the information rounds which went out were only in
English. They were available in multiple languages. This point
was made before the Commons and I corrected it then. If your Lordships
want evidence of that, I can submit to your Lordships' clerk evidence
of the other language versions of the consultation papers which
were provided to the various communities.
11983. My Lord, other than that, unless your
Lordships require further assistance on any of these matters,
I do not propose to say any more.
11984. CHAIRMAN: There you are, Ms Khela,
what you have got is an offer to co-operate with the Liaison Group,
but not I think on the basis of providing to them detailed matters
covered by a collection of undertakings which you have put forward.
I do not think the Promoters are prepared to give undertakings
that they will give specific material to the Liaison Group.
11985. MR ELVIN: My Lord, that is right,
but we have of course, as your Lordship knows, given several other
undertakings and, if I can just instance one of them, with regard
to complying with the Environmental Impact Assessment and the
Environmental Minimum Requirements, I gave one undertaking the
day I opened the case in the House of Commons in January 2006,
and I respectfully suggest to Ms Khela she reads Information Paper
D2, which explains the Secretary of State's position with securing
compliance with the Environmental Assessment and the Minimum Requirements.
11986. MS KHELA: I respectfully say that
I did not mention that, I talked about the NEWT principle which
is something very different. The alignment issue, I would like
to correct you, is actually in the petition, the Bill documents,
which says that the location of Whitechapel Station was fixed,
and we have documentary evidence to support that, so a different
alignment would have been possible but you support a westerly
alignment and if I had been allowed to present my full presentation
you would have had the reason why that was, and that is because
it provides development potential for Tower Hamlets Council. The
fixed position of that station is purely for the purposes of development
which, for a Railway Bill is unacceptable.
11987. CHAIRMAN: I keep on hearing this
being said and I am not going to hear it any more. Please will
you desist from that point.
11988. MS KHELA: I was correcting errors.
11989. MR ELVIN: My Lord, can I make
a suggestion? I am concerned that Ms Khela has a very lengthy
written presentation which she has been reading from, might I
suggest, since your Lordships, for understandable reasons, asked
her to speed up, whether there is any way in which she can give
your Lordships the full written presentation, then you will have
everything she was going to say in writing and you can take it
away and look at it.
11990. CHAIRMAN: We would be very happy
to do that.
11991. MS KHELA: Unfortunately I do not
have a copy today. It has got loads of mistakes in it as well.
11992. CHAIRMAN: We are not going to
read it today.
11993. MS KHELA: I am happy to submit
it. I have done most of it in writing but I would be very happy
to do that.
11994. MR ELVIN: If it can be done tomorrow,
if the corrections can be made and sent out last thing tomorrow,
would that be possible?
11995. MS KHELA: I am sure that would
be possible.
11996. MR ELVIN: I am more than happy
for the Committee to entertain those written submissions. I am
sure we will not want to respond to them but I will have to reserve
my position. If we do, we will have to do so before the close
of the Committee hearing.
11997. CHAIRMAN: We will have to do our
best to read it. We have other petitioners here tomorrow so it
may not be very easy to do it full justice but we will try.
11998. MS KHELA: I am very grateful to
both of you.
11999. CHAIRMAN: I do not think we are
going to be able to get much further progress on this. These detailed
undertakings I think are not going to be very likely to proceed.
The best one is the Liaison Group as proved elsewhere. I would
suggest that we would endorse what the House of Commons said about
that and encourage you to take this very seriously and to stop
trying to re-open Route B and the EIA point on which we have made
rulings. We can do nothing about this, we have made rulings on
it, and I am afraid it is no use going on rehearsing it.
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