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Crossrail Bill [Instruction No. 2]

That is the precise area in which I cannot be hard and fast. I cannot tell members of the Select Committee exactly what they should or should not consider, subject to the general parameters that we are setting out. I hope that the Select Committee will address itself to the merits or otherwise of extending Crossrail to Reading at some stage. I would like to think that some of the capacity problems at Reading station will have been resolved when Crossrail is constructed. What the right hon. Lady said is right, and it is a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West will undoubtedly make in his intervention. There are problems at Reading, and I have had many discussions with Network Rail about trying to sort them out. If Crossrail were extended, new considerations would arise, but it would be wrong to say that the Select Committee could not consider them. The Select Committee might say, ““Until those things have been sorted out, it would be daft to extend the line.”” All and sundry have advised me that today’s motion will allow the discussion that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead and my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West want, which is as good an assurance as I can give.