---

Crossrail Bill [Instruction No. 2]

As I said to my hon. Friend in July, when Crossrail is completed, it will help west country services. From memory, approximately £1 billion of expenditure is designed to improve the approaches to Paddington station. One of the problems with them is the presence of various goods yards. Although there are not many goods trains every day, they are long and heavy and each manoeuvre can take six or seven minutes’ capacity out of the line. It does not take many such instances, especially in the rush hour, to start holding up traffic. My hon. Friend, as a regular user of the line to Bristol and the south-west, knows that several pinch points need to be sorted out. Since we had the debate in July, the new franchise for the Great Western line has been launched and I believe that that will lead to some improvements. Some disruption is inevitable when building a railway, but once Crossrail is completed, it will help because it means additional capacity and taking out some of the blockages that cause some of the current delays.