Crossrail Bill

The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, is exercising his mind on this matter, as one would expect. He is, after all, an experienced railway manager and he understands how the network operates. This afternoon he has reined back his expectations of where Crossrail could end up. I have a feeling that at Second Reading he made a case to extend it to Milton Keynes, or perhaps that was my imagination. I do not quite recall, but I have a feeling that he raised that prospect at an earlier stage. Clause 57 allows any Transport and Works Act order which relates to a proposed extension of Crossrail or to the provision of a railway facility connected with Crossrail to apply provisions of the Bill, with any modifications necessary, or to provide for any provision of the Bill to have effect as if the extension or alteration in question were part of Crossrail. The Bill establishes a bespoke regime for Crossrail, modifying or disapplying various bits of legislation and replacing them with a tailor-made regime, based heavily on that created in the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act 1996, as I explained earlier. This afternoon we have debated, for example, how the Bill modifies the railway regulatory regime. It also modifies the planning and control of pollution regimes in connection with Crossrail. Were a Transport and Works Act order subsequently sought for an additional Crossrail railway facility, such as a modified station, additional tracks or freight loops, it could not necessarily apply the regime established by the Bill to those works. That is because TWA orders, as a form of delegated legislation, are limited in what can be done by way of modifying the application of legislation. Clause 57 allows any such TWA order to make the provision needed to ensure that any new facility or extension is subject to the same regime as the Crossrail scheme covered by the Bill. That is the purpose of the clause, and we believe that that makes sense. The noble Lord is using this clause as a sort of hook on which to hang his Reading expectation. He made points about Maidenhead, although I am sure that Maidenhead would not recognise itself in quite the way that the noble Lord described it. However, we have made it very clear in Written Statements, and I announced on 6 February, that as a Government we intend to safeguard the additional land between Maidenhead and Reading, as a measure to give the flexibility to extend Crossrail in the future should there be a business case—a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. The difficulties with the business case are, in a sense, part of the argument that the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, provided this afternoon: that there should be a mix. I understand that line of argument. In any event, a semi-fast diesel service from Reading is planned to complement the Crossrail services. Clearly, if Crossrail were extended to Reading, the mix of services would need to be looked at further, but it has to be recognised that there are limits to the capacity of the slower lines for taking semi-fast services. Therefore, I do not think that it is quite as easy as the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, would have us believe, but I understand the thinking behind what he said. There is no need to include the extension of works powers to Reading in the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, understood the potential impact of doing that. It would delay the progress of the Bill. We would have to go back, which would take up parliamentary time, and it would add additional costs to the project, which, as we all know, is currently projected to cost £16 billion. I do not want to risk delaying the start of construction. That is why we have enabled the route to be protected; so that there is flexibility. There is currently little passenger demand to take a Crossrail service from Reading to London. I understand why there may be some pressure for that to be considered, and we are not closing off that option—that is the important thing—but there would need to be other, wider reasons for deciding to extend Crossrail that far. The industry recognises the importance of keeping the option open. We endorse that approach and support it, and we will be taking forward the safeguarding of additional land between Maidenhead and Reading in the future. I have nothing further to say on this matter. We recognise that Reading will be and continues to be an important part of the overall network. That is why we are making this investment. It is designed to become a first-class rail centre. Obviously, with the growth in passenger numbers that we have seen in that particular corridor in the past few years, we recognise the importance of continuing that investment. But we have a project that is constrained to Shenfield at one end and Maidenhead at the other. We understand the costing of that, and that is where we are going at the moment. However, we reserve the position for the future, and future Governments with different pressures may well consider it appropriate to seek support for an extension on the terms argued by the noble Lord today. On that basis, I invite the Committee to support Clause 57 as it stands. Clause 57 agreed to. Clause 58 agreed to. Schedule 16 agreed to. Clause 59 agreed to. Schedule 17 agreed to. Clause 60 [Power to devolve functions of Secretary of State]: