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Crossrail Bill

I do not intend to accept the hon. Gentleman’s amendment, although I am grateful for the support that he has given the Government amendment. I think that he has misunderstood the reasons behind my reluctance to accept the amendment in Committee and today. I assure him that I fully support the intention behind his amendment. I agree with his points on consultation. I do not want him to take away from this debate the assumption that I oppose the amendment because he has used the wrong wording. That is not why I am resisting the amendment. As I shall explain, his reservations about consultation are taken care of by industry procedures. Consultation on railway matters was raised a number of times in Committee. There is no disagreement on the principle of consultation. The point at issue is the extent to which it is desirable or sensible to be prescriptive in the Bill. As I explained in Committee, there are many places in the Bill where it is unnecessary to include an authority or obligation to consult more widely, because it does not preclude that. It is not always desirable in cases where there is a specific consultation obligation to predict who appropriate consultees should be. For example, when the Secretary of State or the ORR is placed under a duty to carry out a consultation, they would address who should be consulted as part of a good administrative process. As I agreed in the debates, there are parts of the Bill related to railway matters where an amendment to clarify the natural extent of the consultation would not be without merit, although it could arguably be unnecessary. However, the Government intend that the railway powers in the Bill that deal with access to Crossrail services on the national rail network will be cut back substantially in the House of Lords. That is in the light of progress made using normal industry processes, not least the consideration of the Crossrail access option for access to Network Rail’s network. It is appropriate to consider consultation requirements when hon. Members have argued that amendments could be valuable and when the railway powers are reviewed following the outcome of consideration of the Crossrail access option. In that context, I turn to the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), which is familiar from Committee. The amendment would require the ORR to invite representations from any other parties that it considers appropriate, in addition to the Secretary of State, when it considers that an access contract needs amending because use of the railway facility to which it relates will be affected by the construction of Crossrail. As I have explained, an amendment of this nature is not necessary. The ORR does not need the authority to consult as widely as it considers appropriate—indeed, nothing in clause 26 prevents it from doing just that. The ORR has established policies on consultation and it has a track record of engaging in very open consultation on access matters. In practice, the ORR would need to consult at least the parties to the affected access contracts before it could decide whether and how those contracts needed to be amended. Additionally, clause 26(4) enables the ORR to require those parties to propose what directions should be given and, logically, that would engage them in the consultation process. Ultimately, it can be left to the ORR to decide what is appropriate in this case. As I have stated, amendments to the relevant clauses will be sought, with the aim of enabling their lordships to consider general matters of Crossrail-related railway policy in the light of the wider review and of the potential reduction in those clauses’ scope. Government amendment No. 1 is modelled closely on an amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Wimbledon in Committee, and on the consultation theme that he has regularly discussed. Clause 30 would provide for access to infrastructure associated with the new central tunnel—access that would not be provided for in the Crossrail access option in any event. Hence, the power may be held in reserve until a further access option is secured in relation to that new infrastructure. As a result, now is as good a time as any to amend this part of the Bill. In effect, clause 30 requires the Secretary of State to consult the ORR on the terms of an access contract for services using the Crossrail central tunnel or associated facilities. Government amendment No. 1 requires the Secretary of State also to consult any such other parties as she deems appropriate on the terms of the access contract to which an exemption under clause 30 would relate. There is a conscious parallel with the consultation obligation in clause 24(4)(c). I have to say that I do not believe that the Government amendment is strictly necessary either, as there is no doubt that the Secretary of State would wish to act in the way that I have described. However, given the context of what I have said about the railway powers in general, on this occasion I accept the value of a visible requirement, and I therefore hope that the House will support Government amendment No. 1. As I said in my letter to hon. Members following the Public Bill Committee, I hope that Government amendment No. 1 can be taken as an indication of our genuine intention to keep matters relating to consultation in mind when we come to review the rest of the Bill’s railway powers more widely in the House of Lords. Therefore, I hope that what I have said reassures the hon. Member for Wimbledon and that he will feel able to withdraw amendment No. 5.