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Crossrail Bill

The debate has been interesting, with many important contributions. Those of Back Benchers contained rather more clarity than those of Government Front-Bench Members. Let me therefore first deal with the contentious matter of the instruction. The Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary were confused about the instruction; let me be clear. The instruction’s purpose is to interpret for the Committee the principle of the Bill. The Committee will not be permitted to accept petitions that do not deal with that principle. The custom of the House is clear: those who petition the Committee must have locus standi. In other words, they must have a special or direct interest in the concerns of the Bill or the instruction. It is not, as the Secretary of State promised earlier, the case that anyone can petition the Committee. It is not the case, as the Secretary of State pretended earlier, that the Committee can consider any matter of its choice. The Committee is strictly guided by the instruction. Let any colleagues who were seduced by the Secretary of State’s silky charms—I was not, but we Taliban Tories are hard to persuade—be clear: by voting for the instruction, they narrow the terms of the Committee’s consideration so that it cannot consider some of the many important concerns that my hon. Friends and hon. Members in other parties raised today. During our interesting debate, Hans Christian Andersen was mentioned twice and Monty Python was mentioned once. Let me raise the stakes and remind hon. Members that Leonardo da Vinci once remarked:"““Obstacles do not crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve.””" Benjamin Disraeli said:"““The secret of success is constancy of purpose.””" Yet there has been no constancy of purpose about Crossrail on the Government’s part. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) noted, the management of the project to date gives rise to great concern. Those concerns are not confined to the Opposition. Labour Members, businesses in London, commuters and the affected communities have raised anxieties about a wide range of issues. Perhaps the most profound concern is the doubt about the funding of the project. As I said earlier, in a written question only a week ago, I asked the Under-Secretary for the latest estimated cost of the Crossrail scheme. He suggested that it was £10.29 billion. Yet today, the Secretary of State said that it was likely to be £15 billion or £16 billion. It has risen by between £5 billion and £6 billion in the space of a week.