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Crossrail Bill (Carry Over)

I will not detain the House longer than necessary. This has been an excellent and informed debate. It has also been a very good-humoured debate, aside from the response of the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) to some interventions by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. Despite some disagreements among right hon. and hon. Members on a number of issues, we should not overlook the fact that support for the Crossrail project remains strong and spans the House. That support was reflected the last time that the matter was debated on 12 January, when the motion containing instructions to the Select Committee was carried by 390 votes to nil. It is vital for a project as significant to London and the United Kingdom as Crossrail is that we maintain that consensus. In response to the questions of the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), I can confirm that the Government intend to refer the Bill to Standing Committee as soon as the Select Committee has concluded its work. Discussions with the rail industry as regards freight continue, but I can offer no more specific details on that at the moment. I shall now respond briefly to the points made in the debate. My right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) referred to Ebbsfleet in an intervention on the Secretary of State. My understanding is that Ebbsfleet was part of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Bill at its introduction to the House, and was not added to the Bill by the Select Committee. My right hon. Friend is a long-time supporter of Crossrail. He is a diligent constituency Member and has led an extremely effective and persuasive campaign for a Crossrail station at Woolwich. I will not add to the comments made by the Secretary of State, who has made specific commitments regarding the Woolwich station, but I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich for the campaign that he has led. My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale) made a very effective contribution. I take this opportunity to pay tribute, on behalf of myself and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, to the Committee that he chairs for the work that it has done. Its members have approached a demanding but essential task with a high level of commitment and the House is grateful to them, not least for forgoing the attractions of Antigua for the charms of Woolwich. The hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) referred at length to the Lyons report and I am happy to repeat comments about Lyons that he knows I made as guest speaker at the all-party parliamentary group on Crossrail. I reiterate that we do not expect Sir Michael to make any specific proposals regarding the funding of Crossrail. I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that if his icebreaker at parties is asking people to explain why Ministers constantly refer to the Lyons review of local government finance, I would love to know what his opening chat-up line to his wife was. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that it is necessary for the Government to consider what might be a fairly major structural change to local government finance before they can consider the shape of any future funding package for Crossrail. That is only reasonable if at least some of the funding is to be provided through business rates. Importantly, the final funding decision can be taken only in the context of the comprehensive spending review next summer. That House will agree that to have proceeded with a funding package before Lyons would have left us open to the charge that we were doing so without a clear view of the future of local government finance. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes), who is chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Crossrail, is, I am glad to say, an enthusiastic supporter of Crossrail. I am grateful for his support tonight and for his comments, which truly informed our debate. The hon. Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Binley), the first member of the Select Committee to speak tonight, reiterated the support for Woolwich. He talked of the impact on local people’s lives. That is important because the point of the Select Committee in the hybrid Bill process is to consider the impact on private interests, including those of individuals along the route of a project such as Crossrail and to offer remedies to mitigate the effect. The Committee has made an excellent job of that. My right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) made the first break in the cross-party consensus, expressing his concerns about the cost of Crossrail. I will not be drawn into arguments about the funding of Woolwich, for reasons that I have already given, but his points about public transport spending in his constituency are well made, and I am sure that they were listened to by the whole House. The hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) mentioned his concerns about Liverpool Street station. There are two issues. The first, which is referred to in the additional provisions before us, involves the ticketing and passenger facilities. I can reassure him that the new facilities will be completely separate from existing provisions. He was also concerned about the possibility of Crossrail services using the lines that might be reserved for intercity trains. I reiterate, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said earlier, that Crossrail services, as essentially commuter services, will not use the fast lines about which the hon. Gentleman is worried, but will use the slow lines. My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) devoted most of his contribution, understandably, to making the case for Woolwich. He also made a robust case for investment in Crossrail as a whole. The second member of the Select Committee to contribute tonight, my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South (Sir Peter Soulsby), gave us a valuable insight into the selection process for membership of the Select Committee. I was not involved at any stage in offering the black spot to any of my colleagues in the House. My hon. Friend and his fellow members took their duties extremely seriously. I reiterate that the Government make no criticism at all of the way in which the Committee has interpreted its remit during the progress of the Bill. The hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker) in a short contribution made a welcome argument for general investment in Crossrail and in the capital city as the engine house of the nation. Crossrail will benefit London, the south-east and the United Kingdom as a whole. The Government want to see Crossrail delivered, which is why we are working to drive down the cost of the project to make sure that it is affordable. The whole House will support that. That is why we want to maintain the momentum of the Bill. Let us not lose sight of the big picture. Crossrail will add an estimated £19 billion per year to the United Kingdom’s gross domestic product. In the next 20 years, 30,000 new jobs will be created in the capital, in addition to the 80,000 jobs that will be attracted to the regeneration areas along the route of Crossrail. The motions before the House will allow the Select Committee to conclude its business and allow the Bill to proceed to the next stage. That is surely the most important thing—that an affordable, viable Crossrail scheme should proceed towards implementation. I commend the motions to the House. Question agreed to. Ordered,"That further proceedings on the Crossrail Bill shall be suspended from the day on which this Session of Parliament ends until the next Session of Parliament;""That if a Bill is presented in the next Session in the same terms as those in which the Crossrail Bill stood when proceedings on it were suspended in this Session—""(a) the Bill shall be ordered to be printed and shall be deemed to have been read the first and second time;""(b) the Bill shall stand committed to a Select Committee of the same Members as the members of the Committee when proceedings on the Bill were suspended in this Session;""(c) the Instruction of the House to the Committee [19 July 2005] shall be an Instruction to the Committee on the Bill in the next Session;""(d) all Petitions presented in this Session which stand referred to the Committee and which have not been withdrawn shall stand referred to the Committee in the next Session;""(e) any Minutes of Evidence taken and any papers laid before the Committee in this Session shall stand referred to the Committee in the next Session;""(f) only those Petitions mentioned in paragraph (d) above, and any Petition which may be presented by being deposited in the Private Bill Office and in which the Petitioners complain of any proposed additional provision or of any matter which has arisen during the progress of the Bill before the Committee in the next Session, shall stand referred to the Committee;""(g) any Petitioner whose Petition stands referred to the Committee in the next Session shall, subject to the rules and Orders of the House and to the Prayer of his Petition, be entitled to be heard by himself, his Counsel or Agents upon his Petition provided that it is prepared and signed in conformity with the Rules and Orders of the House, and the Member in charge of the Bill shall be entitled to be heard by his Counsel or Agents in favour of the Bill against that Petition;""(h) the Committee shall have power to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place, and to report from day to day Minutes of Evidence taken before it;""(i) three shall be the Quorum of the Committee;""(j) any person registered in this Session as a parliamentary agent entitled to practice as such in opposing Bills only who, at the time when proceedings on the Bill were suspended in this Session, was employed in opposing the Bill shall be deemed to have been registered as such a parliamentary agent in the next Session;""(k) the Standing Orders and practice of the House applicable to the Bill, so far as complied with or dispensed with in this Session or in the Session 2004-05, shall be deemed to have been complied with or (as the case may be) dispensed with in the next Session;""That these Orders be Standing Orders of the House."