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Crossrail Bill

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, and most other people, I welcome the Bill. The sooner it is got on with the better. It has taken a long time to get this far and I do not want anything I now say to affect the construction of the tunnel and of Crossrail. However, there are problems outside the tunnel, as has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, and the Minister, where the trains from the tunnel share tracks with other trains. I also have reservations relating to the disbalance of services between east and west, with a lot of trains terminating at Paddington and returning in an easterly direction. That is not good railway practice as it means that trains are running very much under load in one direction. In addressing the issue, and realising that it is outside the Crossrail Bill, I urge the Minister to consider whether Maidenhead is a suitable terminus in the west. It is probably one of the highest cost areas around London and any attempt to establish a train depot, or anything that requires lots of staff at Maidenhead, will be very difficult. I say that from my experience on the Thames Valley Police Authority, where we had great difficulty in maintaining staffing at places such as Slough and Maidenhead because as soon as officers went there, they moved to London where wages were higher. Therefore, now it has been decided to invest a lot of money in Reading station, will the Minister assure us that the westerly terminus for trains should be at Reading? Reading people would then have the opportunity of travelling on a wider range of services than they would if the trains terminated at Maidenhead. There is the problem of Heathrow. What trains are going to serve Heathrow? Will people in Canary Wharf, for example, be happy to travel on an all-stations train to Heathrow? I do not think they will be, yet Heathrow Express is expecting people to change at Paddington from Crossrail trains to the Heathrow Express to complete their journey. That does not seem to be a good arrangement. I ask that further negotiations take place with the people concerned with servicing Heathrow to produce something that is more attractive than what is proposed. A further matter than the Government should consider is an extension to Crossrail towards Milton Keynes. Milton Keynes has been designated as a growth area and more and more people travel from there into Euston, and people who change at Euston on to the Underground will tell you that it is the most appalling, heavily crowded place. It would be reasonably simple to extend certain Crossrail trains to Milton Keynes. I realise we are talking about the long term, but the long term as far as railways are concerned is probably a century because railways last a long time. I do not see any means of serving London efficiently without taking account of the fact that these extensions are necessary and that Crossrail only partly does the job. There is also the problem of whether people from places such as Maidenhead would be happy if all their trains were all-station trains because that would extend their journey times. If they are not, how are the semi-fast trains from further out to be encompassed in the timetable? Freight is a serious problem and is presumably the reason why the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has tabled his Motion. As the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, said, 5 million tonnes of freight arrives each year, mostly on the Great Western main line. London is extremely dependent on that freight. It provides all sorts of building materials, which are very much in demand in London and cannot be brought into London in any other way. I counted them up today, and I think there are five aggregates terminals on the final eight miles when coming in to Paddington. Those trains are big and heavy and move slowly. Can the Minister give us an assurance about the underpass at Acton? Is there money somewhere for that to happen? If it does not happen, there will be conflict between the people running freight trains, those running Crossrail and, presumably, the people from further west who want to get into Paddington. From my very recent experience, I can assure the Minister that mainline trains use the relief lines because the main lines are too often unserviceable. There is also a need for more cross-country routes for freight. As there are further developments at Bathside Bay and at Harwich, there will be an increasing flow of traffic to the north. At the moment, that traffic has to come down through Shenfield, I believe, and go round on the North London line. We know that the North London line will not be available for freight very much, and we also know that, as the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, said, there is not much capacity between Shenfield and London. Can the Minister give me a really copper-bottomed assurance that the diversionary routes from the Haven ports through Peterborough to Nuneaton will be ready in time and are not just something that might happen. Like the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, I am concerned about Clauses 22 and 44. I believe that they fundamentally change the relationship between railway companies, the Government and the Office of Rail Regulation. I heard the Minister say that the powers are only reserved powers, but the problem is that they are in the Bill. Once they are there, we do not know whether they will be used. If there are reserved powers, one can presumably conceive of them being used. I want some assurance that they are not a means of letting Crossrail trains have some sort of priority over Great Western trains, both long-distance and outer-suburban trains, and freight trains. In the railway industry, there is a system—it was not designed by me—for access allocation. It is reasonably fair and is accepted by the present players in the railway industry, but if one particular player is given preference over the others, it would be unsatisfactory. I am also concerned about whether everybody appreciates the enormous disruption that will be caused by Crossrail. I am afraid there is no way round it, but I hope sufficient cognisance has been taken of the fact that there will be a lot of disruption and that it will presumably be at exactly the same time as the demand for things such as aggregates to build the tunnel and its surrounding works reaches its peak. That will be a great problem for people commuting from the west of England, south Wales, Bristol and Reading into Paddington and into Liverpool Street. People are entitled to some sort of assurance that the interests of existing users will not be undermined by the interests of other people. I have outlined a series of problems, but we welcome the Bill and want Crossrail. However, we need answers regarding some of these problems because they are of great concern to many people.