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Crossrail Bill [Instruction] (No. 5)

With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This has been a well-informed and good-natured debate, and I am grateful to Members for what they have said. Support for Crossrail clearly remains strong and spans the House. Given that my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) can justifiably claim to have run a very successful and effective campaign for a station at Woolwich, he managed very efficiently to contain his joy at his success. Understandably and correctly, he referred again to what he had said on other occasions about levels of deprivation in Woolwich. I do not intend to rehearse yet again the constitutional arguments about what a Select Committee can and cannot recommend to the Government during the passage of a hybrid Bill and what the Government can and cannot say in response. I shall confine myself to paraphrasing Lady Thatcher and saying ““Just rejoice?. The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) made some supportive comments, for which I was grateful. I was also grateful to him for telling us that the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) is to be married on Saturday. I hope that he will convey my congratulations to the hon. Gentleman, although I do not suppose that what he said constituted an invitation. The Government have always recognised that a station at Woolwich would have regenerative benefits for the Woolwich economy. The argument against it that was advanced in October did not deny that; it was simply about affordability. While a Woolwich station would of course be beneficial to the Woolwich economy, it was not seen as essential to the Crossrail project as a whole. The hon. Member for Wimbledon asked about the timetable for the Standing Committee. The Government hope that, provided that the Select Committee concludes its business before the summer recess, the Bill will be committed in October, with Third Reading and remaining stages in the House in November. The hon. Gentleman also asked about the start of construction. That will depend on an announcement on funding, about which I shall say more later. He asked about the elements of the funding; it is in the public domain that the balance from central Government will be included, as well as a possible levy on business rates in London for businesses that will benefit from the Crossrail project. I hope to say more about that later as well. He asked for an estimate of the expense. An estimate of the expense involved in this element of the scheme, along with information about additional provision, will be deposited at the start of the consultation period in mid-May. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) asked about the cost of the project. He may have been referring to newspaper reports that appeared earlier in the week. I can tell him that a value management exercise has reduced the cost—at 2002 prices, the standard for all Crossrail costings—from £7.8 billion to £6.2 billion, including a contingency element of about 35 per cent. At today’s prices, that is between £15 billion and £16 billion.