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Crossrail Bill

As far as I understand the instructions and the role of the Select Committee, the finance is not to be considered. We are being asked to vote for probably the largest civil engineering project in Europe this century, without any genuine certainty about how it will be financed. I do not doubt Crossrail’s economic importance or the significance of the engineering feat. It will reduce congestion in London and unblock the clogged lines in our capital. However, I am unhappy about the far-reaching powers that the Bill transfers to Crossrail. It threatens the stability of our railway network in terms of the timetable and fair competition. It also threatens the independence of the Office of Rail Regulation and puts the projected growth of freight at risk. My hon. Friends spent some time considering the Office of Rail Regulation and I will not repeat those points, save to say that the contention of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead about her constituents’ desire to look to the Office of Rail Regulation rather than the Mayor of London is true for the people of Brentwood and of Shenfield. We must acknowledge that Crossrail’s effects will be felt not only in the capital, but across country to and beyond Cardiff. Freight has been one of the great successes of the modern railway network. We have reached double figures in the percentage of freight that is carried by rail. We are at a crucial point when significant sums of capital investment have been made in freight, and we are moving from transporting goods for which time was not critical, such as aggregates, coal and oil, to goods for which time is critical. If, at this crucial point, we restrict the ability of freight to be moved on our railways, we risk the disappearance of all that investment and the genuine possibility—at a time when our roads, especially the A12, are massively overcrowded—of freight being transferred from rail to road. That would be ironic. I am worried about other consequences. Four tracks are available for 20 miles from London. Crossrail will take two of them, forcing other services on to the fast lines. That remains a worry to me and my constituents. Crossrail’s route and plans would fit more easily into a railway pattern of the 1980s rather than 2005 or 2015. It is depressing that there appears to be no genuine grasp of the growth of docklands, the extension of the Jubilee line or the strategic importance of the Thames Gateway, about which the hon. Member for Dagenham (Jon Cruddas) spoke so convincingly. That is why the project starts at Maidenhead and ends at Shenfield. None of the developments that I mentioned existed when the original plans were made. The Shenfield line runs at full capacity. Thousands of people travel on it in overcrowded trains, and the slightest delay causes a major snarl-up. Crossrail does not add to the capacity. To be fair, Crossrail claims a slight increase in capacity—from eight to 10 carriages, operating at a greater frequency at what it describes as ““peak and other times””. That can be achieved only at the expense of freight and other users.