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Crossrail Bill (Carry-over)

I am another veteran of the saga—and, indeed, of the Jubilee line extension process, the saga before it, which involved a private Member's Bill and carry-over, and lasted a long time. We all owe colleagues who volunteer or are volunteered to serve on such Bills our thanks, and we do that without exception in this case. They have no direct interest, as the issues do not bring constituency benefits. I support the motion. With this sort of measure, it is imperative that the job is done properly, which requires use of the system for carrying Bills from one Session to the next. That is what has been proposed and it has the unqualified support of all the voices that I have heard so far from around the House. I should like to add three things about what remains to be done in the continuing debate and about why we need to complete that debate. First, we need to follow up the questions about funding posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) and the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field). The Bill is about plans and powers to build, but it does not automatically deliver the money to build—that has to come from elsewhere. The worst possible outcome would be that we carried the Bill over to the next Session, it completed its stages in Parliament and received Royal Assent, and there then remained some uncertainty about funding. There has always been Government resistance to this being a publicly funded enterprise, for reasons that I understand. It is welcome that the City of London recently announced that it is going to contribute and that the Canary Wharf company has put something into the kitty, as it did for the Jubilee line extension. Given that this is a private Bill, which is not quite the same as a Government Bill albeit that it has Government backing, I hope that the Minister will say that as well as Government support for the process he will offer his Department's support to ensure that the funding continues to come together so that by the time the Bill receives Royal Assent we will know the funding is in place.