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Crossrail Bill (Carry Over)

As the Secretary of State said, these are fundamentally procedural motions. To a significant extent, they continue the debates that we had in the House six months ago, and those which took place between his predecessors and my predecessors in 2005. Simply continuing the Select Committee process and the debate about the detail of the Crossrail project from this Parliament to the next one is not contentious. We will certainly not do anything other than provide our support for the motions. I wait with interest to hear the remarks of the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) about Woolwich station. He has raised some legitimate concerns. I understand the Secretary of State’s perspective on costs; anyone in his position clearly has to focus on cost. But there are other issues in relation to Woolwich, and I hope that the work that he has described will be able to contribute to taking forward thinking on that part of the project. I also commend Committee members of all parties for the work that they are doing on the project. Membership of the Crossrail Committee is certainly one of the most arduous parliamentary tasks of this year, and they ought to be commended for the diligence and patience with which they have done their work, the care with which they have brought forward proposals to amend the Bill, and the time that they have committed to the substantial number of petitioners who have rightly wanted to have the opportunity to have their say about the detail of the Crossrail project. Although we are not in dispute over the motion, which is a procedural matter passing debate on from one parliamentary session to the next, that means, of course, yet more time passing for a project that, the Secretary of State will know from looking back at the work of his predecessors, was supposed to be happening already. If he looks back to the famous 10-year plan for transport published five years ago by his predecessor with responsibility for such matters, the Deputy Prime Minister, he will see that this project was due to be finished by 2010. As was said at the time:"““The Plan includes £8 billion of public investment and £10 billion of private investment for transport in London. Together with public resource expenditure of £7 billion this gives a total of £25 billion over ten years…assuming the broad approach set out above, the following could be delivered with this level of investment””" by 2010. There is then a list of what could be delivered, including"““a new east-west rail link, such as CrossRail, delivering up to a 15 per cent. increase in total national rail and Underground seats into central London during the morning peak””." The big unanswered question that lies behind this debate is: what is going to happen? We are taking through a debate about the detail of the project. We are securing the rights in law to make that project come to fruition. There is no doubt that the underlying issue as it affects London transport is very substantial. Capacity on all rail links into central London is a major problem. There is increased congestion on the rail network in and around London—including the underground, but not only that. I came in from St. John’s Wood this morning at about 10.30 and the train was absolutely packed. Anyone who is a regular commuter into one of London’s main termini knows just how full the trains are and how often they exceed the ““passengers in excess of capacity”” limits. Somewhat bizarrely, in the past few weeks one major rail company operating in London has said that it is going to increase capacity by ripping out seats in order to create more room for people to stand. This is the reality of transport in London today.