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Crossrail Bill [Instruction No. 2]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, particularly for trailing this intervention. He will know that my concern has always been that, because Shenfield is mentioned in the long title of the Bill, it will not be possible to petition the Committee or to allow it to make a recommendation to truncate the route. On Second Reading in July, the right hon. Gentleman differentiated between the principle of the Bill and the proposed route, and suggested that it would be possible for the Committee to examine where the termini should be and to make recommendations on that. For further clarity, I shall remind the House that he said of the Select Committee that"““it should treat the principle as having been established by Second Reading. Our instruction goes further, in that it suggests the route. I repeat, however, that if someone came along and said that the stations or the termini should be different, the Select Committee may well want to consider that. It would be up to the Committee.””—[Official Report, 19 July 2005; Vol. 436, c. 1126.]" That is at considerable variance from what the right hon. Gentleman has suggested today, which is that it is a matter of principle, set in stone, that the terminus not be anywhere other than at Shenfield. What is the purpose of allowing a Committee to hear petitions if it is not allowed to consider them and to make recommendations? I have known the right hon. Gentleman for a long time, and I have always accepted his word without reservation, but I must ask him to reflect most carefully on the clear undertaking that he gave me in the Chamber in July, and to consider whether further instructions need to be given to the Select Committee.